Plenty of Republican officials and candidates have recently overhauled their websites to remove references and images of Donald Trump, but when Rep. Byron Donalds did the same thing it was a harsh reminder of how just how far the president had fallen.

The Florida congressman, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, has been a sycophantic, election-denying Trump loyalist and surrogate in recent years, tying his fortunes directly to his unapologetic embrace of the president. But as Donalds’ gubernatorial campaign in the Sunshine State reaches the homestretch, he and his team nevertheless thought it would be a good idea to start scrubbing his website.

The changes were hardly subtle. The campaign website used to be filled with references to the incumbent president. The Miami Herald reported“A button to ‘Chip in to Support Trump Endorsed Byron Donalds’ was at the top of the homepage. ‘TRUMP-ENDORSED Proven Conservative Fighter. BYRON DONALDS’ was the page’s main text. A yellow banner reading ‘ENDORSED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP!’ marked the middle of the homepage and a prominent section quoting Trump’s 2025 endorsement said ‘RUN, BYRON, RUN!’” Recently, all of these Trump references have been removed, as was a photo of Donalds and his wife, Erika Donalds, posing with Trump.

The president doesn’t appear to be taking it well. On Saturday, Trump responded to the edits to Donalds’ campaign site with a lengthy, 459-word tirade on his social media platform. It read in part: Another Fake Story is that a very close friend of mine, a man I endorsed very early, Byron Donalds, is taking me off his website and Campaign materials. … The story started with the Woke and Dying USA Today, and then, of course, it permeated to CNN, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Newsweek, The New York Times, ABC, NBC, Forbes, and others. This is the Corrupt Media Outlets trying to demean. … This was a Fake Story, with no sources, and the only justification for it is they want to stop my ever upward momentum. … If Florida thought the story that Byron “dropped” me was true, he would lose the Election, and that would be a terrible thing because he’s going to be a fantastic Governor!

There’s no point in fact-checking every error of fact and judgment in the president’s rant, but at its core was simple claim: Donalds didn’t remove Trump from his campaign website.

The trouble is, Donalds removed from Trump from his campaign website The story wasn’t fake, and it didn’t need to rely on named sources. We could see what the website said before; we can see what the website says now; and one doesn’t need a lot of experience with the “what’s different?” picture games on the back of cereal boxes to note the obvious distinctions. Some political stories are complex, but as campaign developments go, this one’s so easy to understand that even the president should be able to manage it.

The trouble is, Donalds removed from Trump from his campaign website The story wasn’t fake, and it didn’t need to rely on named sources. We could see what the website said before; we can see what the website says now; and one doesn’t need a lot of experience with the “what’s different?” picture games on the back of cereal boxes to note the obvious distinctions. Some political stories are complex, but as campaign developments go, this one’s so easy to understand that even the president should be able to manage it.

But to hear Trump tell it, can’t be true because, well, it just can’t. It was a timely reminder that his definition of “fake news” is “accurate information he doesn’t like.” The president’s online rant went on to claim, “Two Rallies are already scheduled in Florida for Byron and, will be, as always, ‘SOLD OUT!’” There’s been no official confirmation, however, that these rallies will actually happen, or whether the GOP congressman has agreed to participate in the alleged events. Watch this space.

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