We came across this tweet:

The tweet includes a photo of what looks to be a statement issued by former US President Donald Trump on 21 July 2022. The statement includes a header with a “Save America” logo.

In the statement, the former US President had allegedly wished a speedy recovery to current US President Joe Biden, but not before calling him “Sleepy Joe” and saying that he is “taking America in the wrong direction”. Mr Trump also called his fight against COVID-19 (which he dubbed the “China virus”) as “Herculean, and not meaning the woke Disney Hercules but rather the Kevin Sorbo one”.

For context, it was announced that President Joe Biden had contracted COVID-19 last week, and that he was experiencing “very mild symptoms”.

At time of publication, the tweet had garnered over 4.7k retweets and 41.4k likes. Even American actor Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules in the TV series, shared the image on his Twitter page.

“This is a parody. But should be the official statement. Still a work of art.”

According to a factcheck by USA Today, author of the tweet Clay Travis later wrote in a reply to his tweet of the image that “This is a parody. But should be the official statement. Still a work of art.”

Taylor Budowich, a spokesperson for Mr Trump also confirmed the statement was fake in a tweet, saying that it is false and that it was “obviously designed by some prankster”. Liz Harrington, a spokesperson for the former president, also confirmed to Reuters that no such statement was published.

AP reported that Republican Senetor Ted Cruz of Texas also shared the tweet with the caption: “This is fake, but funny as hell.”

Therefore, we rate this alleged statement by former president Donald Trump as satire.