Updated | On Friday, the 14th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump appeared to have quietly deleted a two-year-old tweet from September 11, 2013, in which he mocked "haters and losers." But on the Internet, as a cached version of the tweet shows, nothing disappears forever. After several news outlets noticed the tweet's absence, Trump manually re-tweeted it back into existence.
“@realDonaldTrump: I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 12, 2013
The tweet was deleted soon after it resurfaced, thanks to National Review writer Charles C.W. Cooke, Friday morning.
Trump frequently turns to Twitter to make polarizing statements, such as his insistence that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. He also has a history of deleting tweets. In April, Trump tweeted, then quickly deleted, a snide remark about Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. "If Hillary Clinton can't satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?" Trump's tweet said. Trump claimed a staffer was responsible for the tweet.
Then, in July, Trump tweeted that Republican presidential candidate and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush "has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife." Bush's wife, Columba, is a Mexican immigrant. Trump later deleted the tweet too.
Later that month, the real estate mogul tweeted a campaign poster that featured images of World War II re-enactors in Nazi uniforms alongside the slogan for his 2016 presidential campaign, "Make America Great Again." Trump told Daily Dot's Eric Geller an intern was responsible for the tweet.
A request for comment from the Trump campaign about why Trump's tweet from September 11, 2013 was deleted was not immediately returned.
Update: This story has been updated to reflect that the tweet is back.
