What was claimed
Donald Trump said that “trans people don’t exist”.
Our verdict
This video isn’t real and is probably AI-generated. The original footage shows the US president made no such comments.
Clip of Donald Trump saying ‘trans people don’t exist’ isn’t real
A video shared on social media which appears to show US President Donald Trump saying “trans people don’t exist” is not real, and was probably created using artificial intelligence (AI).
It was originally shared on X (formerly Twitter) by an account which describes itself as posting content that is “mostly satire”. The full video includes text which says “Unreal: lacking in reality, substance or genuineness”. However this appears to have been partially cropped from some versions of the clip being shared elsewhere on social media.
The clip matches footage from a press conference Mr Trump held at the White House on 12 May 2025 in which he spoke about a recent ceasefire brokered between India and Pakistan, among other things.
But in the original footage he makes no such comments about transgender people and no credible news outlets have reported Mr Trump making these comments.
The audio in the version now being shared on social media appears to have been AI-generated. AI also appears to have been used to make it look as though Mr Trump is saying the words falsely attributed to him, an example of a lip-sync deepfake.
Mr Trump has however made a number of formal statements regarding gender identity. On 20 January 2025—the day of his second inauguration—Mr Trump issued an executive order which stated: “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.” Another executive order issued on 27 January described expressing a transgender identity as a “falsehood”.
We have previously fact checked a number of other deepfake videos, audio clips and AI-altered images of Mr Trump. We’ve also produced guides with helpful tips on how to spot AI-generated images, and deepfake videos being shared on social media.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because this video isn’t real and was likely altered using AI.