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| - A rumor circulating online in late December 2024 claimed U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said President Joe Biden had scheduled Hanukkah on the same day as Christmas. A reader emailed Snopes about this claim, asking, "Did Marjorie Taylor Greene really say this: 'Why would Joe Biden schedule Hanukkah on the same day as Christmas? I'll tell you why: because he hates Christians.'"
Several X users shared the purported Greene quote, as did others on Facebook and the relatively new social media platform Bluesky.
Some readers seemed to interpret the rumor as a factual recounting of real-life events, but it was not. It originated with a user who publishes satirical content.
A search of Google News — one of many services that gather news articles published around the world — located no reports of Greene making the remark. Instead, our search of Google's traditional search engine found the original Dec. 25 post (archived) from X user @NotHoodlum. The bio for @NotHoodlum mentioned the user publishes "commentary" as a "satirical emeritus."
The same user also posted the same fake Greene quote with the same "satirical emeritus" bio on Bluesky (archived).
Greene's authentic messages posted in December 2024 celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah, on both her personal and political accounts. None of the posts mentioned Biden.
The satirical quote bore similarities to another matter from earlier in the same year, when some conservative social media users alleged Biden proclaimed Transgender Day of Visibility on the same day as Easter Sunday — March 31. The truth was the president named March 31 as Transgender Day of Visibility in previous years. Easter Sunday — a moveable holiday that shifts dates annually based on the spring equinox — simply happened to fall on the same day in 2024.
Why Did Hanukkah Fall On Christmas in 2024?
The fictional story about the fake Greene quote spread as Hanukkah began on Christmas Day in 2024. The Associated Press reported (archived), "In a calendar rarity, Hanukkah starts this year on Christmas Day," noting Judaism's eight-day Festival of Lights had only begun on Christmas four times since 1900 (Vox.com named those four years as 1910, 1921, 1959 and 2005).
The article added, "Why is Hanukkah so late this year? The simple answer is that the Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles, and is not in sync with the Gregorian calendar which sets Christmas on Dec. 25. Hanukkah always begins on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Kislev, a date which occurs between late November and late December on the Gregorian calendar."
Snopes has addressed other claims about Greene in the past, including the true assertion she once spoke of "Nancy Pelosi's gazpacho police," as well as a false rumor she said, "We all want Earth to be the best planet in the world."
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources calling their output humorous or satirical.
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