'Dude faked a family': GOP candidate ridiculed for campaign photos featuring non-relatives
Republican Derrick Anderson looked like the perfect family man in a campaign photo flanked by a loving wife and three smiling daughters — there was just one problem, as New York Times reporting revealed Friday and a baffled lawmaker summarized.
"Dude faked a family," jabbed former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). "Wtf is wrong with these candidates i mean just wut."
According to the Times, Anderson, a former Green Beret hoping to represent Virginia's District 7 in Congress, has posed with a woman and three children of a longtime friend.
Anderson himself is engaged and has no children, the Times reported. That did not stop Anderson from posting photos of himself with a wife and three kids which has appeared on his YouTube page on a National Republican Campaign Committee website.
After the Times reporting went public, it also popped up repeatedly on social media — alongside jokes.
"Y'all [Anderson] has fake family pictures," wrote On Democracy podcast host Fred Wellman. "Amazing."
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) had a question for Sen. J.D. Vance, who repeatedly makes headlines with claims that childless Americans are sociopaths who don't have a stake in America's future.
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"Do you think that applies to GOP candidate Derrick Anderson, who doesn’t have children but is trying to mislead voters by renting a family in his pictures?" asked Lieu. "Asking for a friend."
"New levels of weird and creepy," replied abortion rights activist Olivia Julianna. "THESE ARE NOT HIS CHILDREN AND THAT AINT HIS WIFE."
One person was not laughing, according to New York Times reporter Annie Karni.
"A spokesman for Mr. Anderson criticized The New York Times’s decision to focus on the footage and said that 'Derrick’s opponent and every other candidate in America are in similar pictures and video with supporters of all kinds,'" Karni wrote. "The spokesman said the video simply showed Mr. Anderson 'with female supporters and their kids.'"
Jake Lahut, campaign reporter for the Columbia Journalism Review, shared his previous reporting on Anderson and whether or not he lived in the district he hoped to represent.
"Thought I had a weird story about this guy about a year ago," wrote Lahut, "but sheeeesh."
CJ Warnke, communications for the Democratic political group House Majority PAC, reminded followers of the 2013 comedy "We're the Millers" in which a drug-dealing Jason Sudeikis assembles a fake family (which includes Jennifer Aniston as a stripper/pseudo wife) to smuggle drugs across the U.S. border.
"We're The Andersons," Warnke wrote. "#VA07."