Donald Trump finally unveiled his “Fake News Awards” Wednesday, but unfortunately for fans and mockers alike, the wait wasn’t over. The awards, whatever they might be, are hosted on the Republican Party’s official website, GOP.com — however, after Trump tweeted the link to them at 5:00 PM PT, the traffic spike crashed the site. Oops.
As of this writing, the “Fake News Awards” page still isn’t loading for anyone to see the Trump’s sick burns against his enemies in the press, namely CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, but if you want to see the winners, we found a cached version of the post — see it here.
Trump announced his “Fake News Awards” earlier is month, but with few details as to what they actually were or how they would work. He did say that the awards would cover “Dishonesty & Bad Reporting,” with little else to go on. Given the president has been claiming that any reporting he doesn’t seem to like is “fake news” since before he was elected, however, the entire affair sounded like an extension of his usual anti-press rhetoric.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/948359545767841792
Trump later changed the date of the “Fake News Awards,” citing a high level of interest in them. He and the GOP apparently didn’t know exactly how much interest there would be, since the GOP website hasn’t been able to handle traffic.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/950103659337134080
What exactly the awards were, when they would happen and where wasn’t clear even on the day Trump said they’d come up. White House officials had little to add: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the awards a “potential event” Tuesday before they were set to go live. During Wednesday’s daily press briefing, Sanders said something would be happening later in they day, but with zero other details. And thanks to the GOP website crash, there are still zero other details.
The botched launch of the awards comes despite objections from GOP Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake, who criticized the president for his attacks on the press, Flake with a speech on the Senate floor and McCain with an opinion piece for the Washington Post.