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A College Kid Is Using Biden's Text Code to Raise Money for Pete Buttigieg

“Go to Joe30330,” Biden said at the end of the debate. And Joshua Fayer jumped into action.
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One man’s debate-night flub is another man’s viral treasure.

When former Vice President Joe Biden fumbled the text number for his campaign during night two of the Democratic presidential debates in Detroit, a crafty college student seized his opportunity.

“Go to Joe30330,” Biden said during his closing statement Wednesday night, as if he was referring to a website.

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And Joshua Fayer jumped into action.

The 21-year-old public relations major at Syracuse University quickly purchased the domain name with a friend and directed it to his spoof campaign website, JoshForAmerica.com, a few hours later. Visitors to Joe30330.com get taken to a red and blue logo and a blue-tinted photo of Fayer in a snazzy suit and tie, looking into the distance. The site also features a YouTube video of Fayer throwing his hat into the 2020 presidential race; it had nearly 15,000 views by press time.

The spoof was first discovered on Twitter Wednesday night.

“As the first Gen-Z'er to declare candidacy for this office, you can trust that I'm the real deal,” the website reads. “And I'm not joshin' you.”

His signature platform? No homework in college.

“Some say this policy is unneeded, self-serving and that no one really wants it,” Fayer says in his video. “But my comprehensive polling has shown irrefutably that college students support my position.”

Fayer told USA Today that the video, and the website, were actually created earlier this year as an April Fools Joke.

Though Fayer told USA today that he’s not endorsing any of the candidates in the 2020 race so far, he does seem to have a clear favorite: For the first few hours after Fayer biught Joe30330, he redirected it to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign website-- bt then decided he’d take all the glory for himself.

Even still, the donate tab on JoshForAmerica.com asks people to “feel free to donate to our good friend Pete Buttigieg.”

That’s not to say he’s giving up on his dream of a “no homework in college” federal mandate.

"We would welcome any chance to better inform the candidates' stances on homework in college, a central issue to my campaign," he told USA Today.

Neither the Buttigieg or the Biden campaign had contacted Fayer about his website by press time.