It sounded just like a 'normal' thing to say for Donald Trump: during a rally in Utah he was said to have promised to 'put Sanders on a plane to Russia' the morning after his election. Trump reportedly continued:
East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, any one of those countries that threaten our freedom. They can have him. Say - how about Berlin or Warsaw? They're full of Commies.
Of course the story is fake. Even Donald Trump knows the Soviet bloc collapsed in 1989 and communism no longer holds sway over Eastern Europe the way it used to. The whole thing is a hoax perpetrated by satirical news website News Thump, which bills itself as "UK Spoof News and Satire" in its header:
Interestingly enough, if you visit the site in Europe the "Spoof News and Satire" part is covered up by the warning about cookie usage (legally required in the E.U.) that pops up on the site (and which just about everyone in Europe ignores):
Without the warning the site looks just like a slightly tabloidy news website, and if you only see the story on social media it has a certain truthiness to it as well:
Donald Trump pledges to deport Bernie Sanders to Soviet Union
The controversial candidate made the pledge to a wildly cheering crowd in Utah who seemed not to realise that it isn't 1986 any longer. Evidently unaware that the Iron Curtain collapsed under the internal contradictions inherent in Communism in 1989, Trump pledged to 'put Sanders on a plane to Russia' the morning after his election.
At the moment of writing not many people have shared the article online yet, but we expect that number to grow significantly. Keep track of the spread by watching the graph below:
