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[634-5789]

This message was self-deleted by its author (634-5789) on Mon Feb 9, 2026, 12:34 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[Irish_Dem]

1. About damn time.

Call the bastards out.
EVERY TIME.

[Renew Deal]

21. It never happened

It’s disinformation

[SalviaBlue]

43. ACTC

Always check the comments.

Damn! I was taken in by this. But, alas, it was too good to be true. Thanks for the fact check.

I have learned in my many years on DU ( and the internet in general) to always check the comments.

[leftstreet]

53. SEX SEX SEX SEX

If you've clicked on this thread, please read the comments below to see that it's not true

Thank you for your attention to this matter

[democrank]

2. When the recitation of facts overtakes widely-accepted spin

it’s a moment of ship-righting that produces “stunned silence.” We should ask ourselves why that is….and fix it.

[niyad]

33. True, except that the posted encounter never happened.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Gosh, where's the clip? (Hint:There isn't one, because this didn't happen)

[Skittles]

5. sounds like a good idea though, doesn't it?

KENNEDY IS A REAL PIECE OF SHIT.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

10. sure, but if people are going to post made-up shit like it's true, we should have a Penthouse Letters forum

[Renew Deal]

19. Sounds like disinformation

[Mz Pip]

25. Probably AI generated

There’s so much of this “audience stunned” fake interactions popping up. I’ve seen a lot of them on Facebook. There are several involving so
me fictional takedown with Colbert.

Unless there’s an actual video I assume someone is posting AI generated fan fiction.

[Ocelot II]

35. I've seen these "stunned audience" recitations all over FB.

And they all follow the same pattern. They're the next generation of hysterically-headlined but content-thin videos, and almost certainly AI since most are too long and full of hot air for a human to have taken the time to write.

[Wiz Imp]

39. The sad thing is there are versions with the roles reversed yet people still believe them

Kennedy supposedly taking down Mamdani.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kennedy-mamdani-manifesto-fox/
Sen. John Kennedy didn't read Zohran Mamdani's 'trust-fund manifesto' on Fox News
Users shared the text of a fabricated story about the Louisiana senator and New York mayor-elect appearing together on Fox's "Hannity" TV show.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SignsFromOurLovedOnes/posts/32342016202111001/

KENNEDY READS ZOHRAN MAMDANI’S “ABOLISH RENT” HYPOCRISY ON SENATE FLOOR – THEN SAYS “PAY YOUR OWN $14K LOFT FIRST, JUNIOR”
The housing crisis bill was limping when Zohran Mamdani stormed the well, waving his “Abolish Rent Nationwide Act” like a red flag.
“Senator Kennedy hoards oil wealth while New Yorkers sleep in subways—”
Kennedy didn’t blink.
He yanked a diamond-embossed folder labeled “ZOH-RENT ZERO” from his briefcase and started reading like a sheriff reading charges:
“Zohran Kwame Mamdani
Monthly rent: $0 – mommy wires $14,200 to Tribeca landlord
2024 campaign mailer: ‘Rent is theft’ – printed on $87k paper stock
Security detail: 2 NYPD officers (same force he wants abolished) outside $0 loft 24/7
Eviction moratorium vote: YES – while mommy’s LLC owns 47 rent-stabilized units
Quote, last week: ‘No one should pay rent’ – filmed inside daddy’s rent-free $22M Hamptons estate
Latest stunt: Sleep in a subway – left after 47 minutes for a waiting Town Car”
Kennedy locked eyes with Mamdani, three feet away:
“Junior, I did the receipts.
You want zero rent for the poor while mommy pays zero for your palace?
Go live one month in the subway you romanticize—then lecture Louisiana about fairness.
Till then, take your trust-fund abolition, fold it till it’s all corners, and pay your own damn loft.”
17 seconds of tomb silence.
Mamdani’s manifesto fluttered to the floor.
His face cycled crimson → ghost-white.
Schumer’s gavel froze mid-air.
C-SPAN hit 97 million viewers—record smashed.
PayYourRentZohran nuked X—1.4 BILLION posts in 37 minutes.
Mamdani bolted, live-tweeting: “Class warfare from a fossil!”
Kennedy’s reply, posted with a photo of a Bronx eviction notice:
“Warfare? Sugar, warfare is evicting grandmas while you crash rent-free in daddy’s penthouse.”
The diamond folder? Evidence.
Mamdani’s bill? Evicted.

[Renew Deal]

37. That's a great point

There’s a lot of stuff just like this on YouTube.

[niyad]

58. Some of my favourite bs on youtube are the celebrity "where are they

now" pieces, and "secrets you never noticed in.. . .'x'". The "where are they now" almost always includes a photo of the actress (it is almost always a woman), in a manual wheelchair (the same one), leg amputated above the knee, open wound). Same image (except for face), same chair, same knee. The most recent one I saw was about Elizabeth McGovern (Cora Crawley, Downton Abbey). That same day, I saw her in an interview she had just done the day before about the final movie. hhmmmm

As for "secrets you never knew". .out of curiosity, I watched several about the "Enola Holmes" series, since I had just read the books, and watched the movies. To say that the person was full of it would be kind. Blatantly sexist, first, (hint: Sherlock was not the main character), and downhill from there.

[nankerphelge]

6. Thanks

Should have known it was too good to be true.

[Skittles]

4. that phony Foghorn Leghorn schtick

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Wiz Imp]

7. This should be removed

Link to tweet

Readers added context they thought people might want to know

This story is fabricated; no such CNN interview with Jake Tapper occurred on January 13, 2026. It appears to be a variation of previously debunked fictional accounts involving Sen. Kennedy and Zohran Mamdani.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kennedy-mamdani-manifesto-fox/

Sen. John Kennedy didn't read Zohran Mamdani's 'trust-fund manifesto' on Fox News
A rumor that circulated online in November 2025 claimed U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., appeared with New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on the Fox News TV show "Hannity." According to the rumor, Kennedy read aloud — to Mamdani's face — a supposed "trust-fund manifesto" detailing Mamdani's alleged life of riches.

On Nov. 10, a Facebook user named Kienen-Patricia-Natasja shared (archived) the claim with a collage of photos of Kennedy, Mamdani and conservative commentator Sean Hannity. The post was headlined "KENNEDY READS ZOHRAN KWAME MAMDANI'S ENTIRE TRUST-FUND MANIFESTO ON FOX PRIMETIME – THEN SAYS 'GO CASH DADDY'S CHECK FIRST, JUNIOR.'"

The rest of the post claimed the alleged Fox News video clip featuring Kennedy and Mamdani received 134 million views in two hours. The end of the post also said the network "just green-lit 'Kennedy's Receipts' as a weekly segment."

In short, the rumor was false. No such viral video clip exists, nor did Mamdani ever appear for an interview on "Hannity." The story featured fabricated details about Mamdani's life, possibly written with the help of artificial-intelligence tools. A scan of the text with unreliable AI-detection tools produced differing results, with Copyleaks concluding a 100% likelihood of AI-generated content and ZeroGPT displaying a 0% match.

[EarlG]

8. This isn't satire, it's just untrue

See the Snopes link above. I recommend you self delete this before other people fall for it and spread it around.

[Croney]

12. Is leaving this up setting a dangerous precedent?

I would have sent it to a relative in Louisiana if I hadn't caught that it was a lie.

[EarlG]

16. Removing it sets the precedent that I will be here to

fact check every post on DU, and I can’t do that.

Right now the solution is for people who know that something is false to post replies to warn others, which worked in your case because you didn’t share the information.

I do have some other thoughts on how to handle posts like this, although it might take some time to implement.

[Croney]

17. Thank you.

[Orangepeel]

41. there could be a jury category for blatant falsehood

[EarlG]

47. There can't be a Jury alert for this

I've previously written at length about this, but in a nutshell, the Jury system handles subjective decisions, not objective ones. For the most part, DUers serving on Juries aren't going to want to be asked to go off and fact check things. Plus, the alert would most certainly be abused -- imagine getting constantly called to Juries to adjudicate whether it's factually true or not that, for example, "Chuck Schumer needs to do a better job as Senate Minority Leader." It just wouldn't work.

[ColoringFool]

11. WTBLOODYH?! KNOCK IT OFF, OP.

[niyad]

30. Fake story

[orangecrush]

31. Thanks

Appreciated.

[Johnny2X2X]

14. Love it

I'm not sure if it was Newsom that started it, but he's the first one to bring it to the national discourse for Dems recently. But every single discussion on effective policy should begin with the utter shambles the deepest red states are in.

No disrespect to anyone living in those deep red states, and there are pockets of nice areas in every state, but the living conditions in much of the South are bordering on 3rd world for the majority of the residents there.

In general the redder your state, the more crime and poverty you live with, the shorter life spans are, the worse education and environment is. Right on down the line, the 10 worst states for almost every metric for quality of life are dominated by the deepest red states. Incomes are low, the economies are poor, illiteracy is high, infant mortality is high, infrastructure is in shambles, and the schools are in disrepair.

Dems should have been using this tact for decades. Conservative policies lead to awful conditions to live in, period. Instead we have the country focusing on the problems that California has as if it represents all of the blue states and then of course we also have crime in Chicago somehow being a massive concern even though it's not a top 10 city for crime. They conveniently leave out the entire Northeast when talking about Blue policies and how those are the states that are the best places to live, with the best education systems, lowest crime rates, highest incomes, highest life expectancy, best infrastructure, lowest infant mortality rates, and the longest life expectancy.

The difference could not be more clear, Republican policies turn America into the Deep South, Democratic policies turn America into New England.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

24. except this conversation did not happen

[Ocelot II]

36. It would be if it had actually happened, but it didn't. Fake story.

Read the other posts in this thread.

[peggysue2]

15. Whoosh!

Mamdani has proven himself to be in a class of his own!

[WhiskeyGrinder]

23. and he did it without this story even happening!!

[peggysue2]

34. True, Whiskey Grinder

The man has been defying his critics at every turn. He's sure to have some rough patches eventually but he's definitely hit the road running with impressive agility.

[Renew Deal]

18. Is there any evidence this actually happened?

A link to the video or anything? I’ve searched Google and YouTube and nothing came up. It would be pretty easy to find if it had 90 million+ views.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

22. It did not happen.

[harumph]

20. This is a false meme - clearly mark it satire or take it down.

[Hope22]

48. Sad news because it would be a wonderful smack down.

Kind of funny because 99% of what maggots post is untrue. Have a great day!

[yaesu]

26. This is an educational thread showing how democracy should be defended instead of taking the high road to disaster cliff

I don't care if it's made up, we are at war, let's start acting like it.

[sop]

27. Then it should have been posted as such, not passed off as something that never took place.

[niyad]

29. There is satire, and propaganda, and then there is bs. We do not

need bs here passing itself as truth.

[Renew Deal]

38. Any means necessary, apparently.

Even deceiving our own and making us look bad.

[niyad]

28. ENOUGH!!! You have been asked a number of times to take down

this fake piece. Whatever your justifcations, just please STOP IT. Sadly, your refusal to do so is not a good thing.

[orangecrush]

32. Unrecced for disinformation

[travelingthrulife]

40. This is how it's done. Media, it is called being prepared on the topics he is likely to meet.

Media could do this if they wanted to.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

46. except it wasn't done at all. It's a fake story

[Wiz Imp]

42. Almost as bad as posting such garbage is the number of people cheering it on

without bothering to read any posts in the thread. The third response to the OP indicated it was fake. Yet at least 6 people subsequently posted and accepted it as fact - clearly not reading any other posts in the thread. There have been more than a dozen posts at this point pointing out that it is fact and should be deleted, yet people continue to post and accept it as fact. Why do people not read the posts in a thread before responding themselves?

[Initech]

44. John Kennedy isn't a senator - he's a glorified Fox News correspondent.

He votes how Rupert Murdoch pays him to. Then he goes on the channel to gripe how nobody likes him.

[ornotna]

45. Nice hit and run

Why is this still up?

It’s been posted multiple times that this is FAKE NEWS.
Time to take it down.

[BWdem4life]

49. 59 recs for AI slop and so far no self-delete

Whatever is happening to my beloved DU?

[SheltieLover]

50. Unreccd for being ai slop. Pls take this down

[Ocelot II]

51. Got a lot of folks fooled on this thread. We need to pay a lot more attention to AI slop

because it's taking over. Don't just read; think! I agree that we need an AI Slop alert of some kind because there's too damn much of it and people are swallowing it whole.

[niyad]

56. I look past the headline, check out the link, and if it is a youtube video,

I look at the comments. It can be most enlightening.

[patphil]

52. Oh my! Zohran kicks ass bigtime.

I think I like this guy.

[highplainsdem]

54. It's fake news. Never happened. See the other replies.

[highplainsdem]

55. Please delete this fake news.

[The Revolution]

57. We're doomed

AI slop is hypercharging an all ready out of control deluge of misinformation and disinformation.

Almost every day on here I see a comment bemoaning Fox News viewers just believing whatever they're told. But we see even our side does the same thing. This continues gaining Recs despite being pointed out as fake many times.

[likesmountains 52]

59. Please stop. Please delete. Please be more careful.

[Maninacan]

60. Fiction?

Even if not true i like the Bless his heart phrase!