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Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) in an interview with Vice News.
- GOP Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona tweeted out a fake photo of former President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that appears to show the two men smiling and shaking hands.
- "The world is a better place without these guys in power," Gosar tweeted.
- Obama and Rouhani have never met. Rouhani is also still in power.
- Gosar made headlines during the 2018 midterm elections when six of his siblings endorsed his opponent, David Brill, and skewered Gosar's candidacy in a Brill campaign ad.
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Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona tweeted out a doctored photo showing former President Barack Obama shaking hands with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
"The world is a better place without these guys in power," Gosar tweeted.
Obama and Rouhani have never met. Rouhani is also still in power.
CNN reported that the original photo that the fake photo was based on shows Obama shaking hands with Manmohan Singh, who was India's prime minister at the time.
Obama and Rouhani spoke by phone in September 2013 in a historic moment that reflected the highest level contact between a US and Iranian president in 30 years. It came as the Obama administration was in the process of negotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known as the Iran nuclear deal, with Rouhani's government.
Iran signed the deal in 2015, but the pact unraveled when President Donald Trump withdrew the US from it in May 2018. Iran continued to comply with the deal at the urging of other western nations, but it officially pulled out of the agreement over the weekend, after Trump ordered a drone strike that assassinated Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the most powerful military official in Iran who was also widely revered throughout the country.
Gosar responded after his tweet made the rounds.
"To the dim witted reporters like @dmedin11: no one said this wasn't photoshopped. No one said the president of Iran was dead. No one said Obama met with Rouhani in person," he tweeted. "The tweet says: 'the world is a better place without either of them in power'."
Gosar added: "The point remains to all but the dimmest: Obama coddled, appeased, nurtured and protected the worlds No. 1 sponsor of terror. The world is better without Obama as president. The world will be better off without Rouhani."
The congressman made headlines in 2018 after six of his siblings endorsed his opponent, Democratic candidate David Brill, in the midterm elections. In a campaign ad for Brill, Gosar's siblings skewered him for his positions on healthcare and Social Security.
"I'm just hoping either in this election cycle or next, the people get the idea that he's just not fit for that office and he needs to be removed," Gosar's brother, David, said in the ad.
Gosar responded by tweeting: "My siblings who chose to film ads against me are all liberal Democrats who hate President Trump." He also said they were "disgruntled" by Hillary Clinton's loss in the 2016 US presidential election, adding that they were "related by blood to me but like leftists everywhere, they put political ideology before family. Stalin would be proud."
Gosar ended by saying, "To the six angry Democrat Gosars - see you at Mom and Dad's house!"
The world is a better place without these guys in power. pic.twitter.com/gDoXQu9vO5
- Paul Gosar (@DrPaulGosar) January 6, 2020U.S. congressman sharing a fake photo. This photoshopped from Obama meeting India's prime minister. https://t.co/7UMjyPwFDQ pic.twitter.com/ckRZx3ktok
- andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) January 6, 2020