US president Donald Trump has retweeted a man who called him a fascist.
In what looked like an accident, Mr Trump forwarded to his 34 million followers a message by British man Mike Holden saying: “@foxandfriends and @realDonaldTrump He’s a fascist, so not unusual.”
Mr Holden’s tweet was in response to a story by Fox News that Mr Trump was “seriously considering” a pardon for ex-sheriff of Arizona Joe Arpaio.
Mr Arpaio was two weeks ago found guilty of breaking a court order to stop racially profiling Latinos.
Mr Holden’s notifications feed was plunged into chaos as Trump supporters tweeted criticism at him
When he realised that he had been retweeted by the US president, though, he responded with enthusiasm.
“OMG I DIDN'T REALISE HE RTD IT!!! I'M RETIRING FROM TWITTER, MY WORK IS DONE!!” he tweeted.
He said he was taking the retweet as an official endorsement.
“I'm going to put ‘Endorsed by the President of the United States’ on my bio, as soon as they have a decent one!” he wrote.
He then updated his bio to say: “Officially Endorsed by the President of the United States. I wish that were a good thing.”
The retweet was deleted a short time later by the US president.
But the publicity storm had only just begun.
“Phone call with a Washington Post reporter. Pretty standard dinnertime really,” wrote Mr Holden.
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