Fact Check

Did Jerry Falwell Jr. Say We Have a President Who 'Looks Like Us?'

Sometimes you can't tell players on social media without a scorecard.

Published March 1, 2019

 (Shutterstock, stock)
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Claim:
Jerry Falwell Jr. posted a message on Facebook celebrating that "we have a president" who "looks like us."

In late February 2019, a screenshot spread on social media that supposedly showed a message posted to the Facebook page of Jerry Falwell, Jr. -- the president of Liberty University and the son of the late televangelist Jerry Falwell -- in which he celebrated the fact that "we have a president who prays like us, serves like us, and looks like us":

This message was truly posted to a Facebook page using the handle "Jerry Falwell Jr.," but that social media account is not affiliated with the president of Liberty University.

Both the above-displayed post and the "Jerry Falwell Jr." Facebook page have since been deleted, and we were unable to uncover an archived version of the message. However, the Facebook page, which resided at the URL "Facebook.com/jerryforamerica," was connected to a Twitter account which as of this writing is still active. And on 21 February 2019, that Twitter account -- "Jerry Falwell Jr. for America" -- shared a verbatim reproduction of the same message and linked to the since-deleted Facebook post:

Again, this Twitter account is not affiliated with Jerry Falwell Jr. It is an impostor account impersonating the president of Liberty University.

The fake Twitter account resides at @TheJerryFalwell, while Falwell Jr.'s actual Twitter account can be found at @JerryFalwellJr. One major difference between the two is that Falwell Jr's genuine account has a verified blue checkmark and more than 65,000 followers, while the impostor account is not verified and only has a few dozen followers.

We reached out to Liberty University for more information about the "Jerry Falwell Jr." Facebook page that shared the viral message and were told that "this page is pretending to be President Falwell. We have reported the page as spam and it has since been taken down."

As far as we can tell, Falwell Jr. does not have his own personal Facebook page.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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