Dan Rather and His Twitter Followers Mock Trump ‘Reinstatement Day’

Veteran broadcast journalist Dan Rather went viral on social media on Friday after he mocked supporters of Donald Trump who believed the bizarre conspiracy theory that the former president would be reinstated in the White House this week.

The latest prediction that Trump will be reinstated “by the morning of August 13,” propagated by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell on a right-wing podcast, failed on Friday, prompting critics to ridicule supporters of the false theory.

“My bad. I completely forgot to mark #reinstatementday on my calendar. What did I miss?” Rather tweeted, sparking a series of jokes and memes directed at Trump, Lindell and their supporters.

“MyPillow guy is the new VP,” one user wrote. Another added: “It’s been pushed back to the 32nd of Neverbember.”

MSNBC hosts Mehdi Hasan and Joy Reid piled on that evening.

“For most of you, today’s significance probably does not go beyond a warm summer Friday. But for the 1-in-3 Republicans who believe Donald Trump will be installed as their rightful president, today is a very significant day indeed,” Hasan, who was filling in for fellow MSNBC host Chris Hayes, said in a segment titled “American delusion.”

“It’s reinstatement day,” he added. “It’s past 8 p.m. Eastern on the 13th of August and you will be shocked to hear that Joe Biden is still the president of the United States.”

Reid tweeted, “So who’s got tickets to the Trump re-inauguration and what are y’all planning to wear??? #TrumpReinstatement.”

Trump’s baseless allegation that widespread voter fraud caused his 2020 presidential election defeat has caused conspiracy theories about his reinstatement to proliferate among supporters.

In an Economist/YouGov poll released Thursday, 23 percent of Republicans said it’s likely that Trump will be reinstated as president before the end of 2021, and 72 percent of Republicans said they don’t believe President Joe Biden was legitimately elected.

Lindell claimed that the Supreme Court would facilitate the reinstatement of Trump, though there are no constitutional grounds for the prediction. He has now extended the timeline for the supposed reinstatement to a later date.

The reinstatement theory has been debunked by a series of fact checkers and even Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s most loyal supporters who previously indicated support for elements of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

“I would hate for anyone to get their hopes up thinking that President Trump is going to be back in the White House in August because that’s not true, and I’m telling you that as a member of Congress, that’s a very difficult thing to do,” Greene said, urging supporters to be “careful in what they believe.”