Wrong number draws mistaken calls, ire from Trump supporters
Traverse City (US): A former Michigan resident was briefly amused to be mistaken for a high-ranking legislator by President Donald Trump supporters who demanded nullification of President-elect Joe Biden's election victory in the state.
But when a trickle of calls and texts Sunday became a torrent of hundreds that continued into Monday, it wasn't funny anymore.
The recipient, who goes by the name O Rose and uses non-gendered they/them pronouns, has a phone number nearly identical to that of Lee Chatfield, former Republican speaker of the Michigan House, whose term expired this month.
In social media postings Sunday, the president's campaign organization targeted Chatfield and Lee Shirkey, a Republican and the Senate majority leader. Hear the evidence ... Correct false statements ... Demand vote on decertification, the campaign said on Facebook.
The posting provided email addresses and phone numbers for Chatfield and Shirkey. But the number listed as Chatfield's actually belonged to Rose, who moved from northern Michigan to the Oakland, California, area five months ago.
People are calling me from every single state. It's weird, very weird, Rose said in a phone interview Monday with The Associated Press. The 28-year-old provided a first initial but withheld their full first name because of concerns about security.
Rose said they initially found the mix-up, first reported by the Petoskey News-Review, humorous and responded with texts of funny memes pictures of pancakes, squirrels, something absurd so they'd know I wasn't a government official. But people kept calling, many refusing to believe Rose wasn't Chatfield.
They'd argue with me. They said everything I was saying was a lie," Rose said. One of them called me three times. He said, 'Well, if you're happening to have lunch with Chatfield or something, could you tell him?' I said, 'No, dude, I don't know this person.
Rose unsuccessfully tried to notify the campaign and enlisted friends to post messages explaining the mistake to the president's Facebook and Twitter feeds. Those, too, drew a barrage of denials and accusations from Trump backers.
