Did Donald Trump post on Truth Social, explaining his pantomime with a malfunctioning microphone at a Milwaukee rally was "pretending to eat a corn dog" rather than "performing oral sex on my mic"? No, that's not true: Trump did have some problems with a microphone and its stand, but he never made this post on Truth Social. The fake post, using the header of Trump's real Truth Social account, was published on X by an account that identifies itself as a parody account. The original fake post also featured a small satire label that was later cropped off.
The fake post was published on Threads on November 4, 2024. Not only was the original satire tag removed, this assertion was made in the post caption:
OK this is not parody. This is really what he's going with.
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Wed Nov 6 15:14:52 2024 UTC)
Trump's problem with the microphone happened during a rally in Milwaukee on November 1, 2024. The gesture in question appears about three minutes into a 4:03-minute-long clip of Trump's complaints about the placement of the microphone stand on the lectern. The clip is excerpted from an almost two-hour-long C-SPAN video of Trump's Milwaukee campaign speech.
The fake post was originally published by an account that displays a parody disclaimer (pictured below in red box) on their profile bio (archived here).
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Nov 6 16:08:52 2024 UTC)
This is how the November 2, 2024, post by @agentselfNSA appeared on X at the time of writing, captioned:
Sure 👍😂
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Nov 6 16:08:52 2024 UTC)
In the lower left hand corner (pictured above) of the fake screenshot, in small white text with a black outline, is the word "satire." The body of the fake Truth Social post has this text with the message in all caps:
Donald J. Trump
@realDonald Trump 58m
I WAS NOT PERFORMING ORAL SEX ON MY MIC, FOLKS! I WAS PRETENDING TO EAT A CORN DOG WHILE WAITING FOR THE TOTALLY INCOMPETENT CREW TO FIX MY MIC. THIS IS PURE ELECTION INTERFERENCE! FAKE NEWS!
Trump's verified account handles on both X and Truth Social are the same, @realDonaldTrump, but the profile pictures and the verification checks are different -- blue on X, and pink on Truth Social. A search on Truth Social for a portion of this caption returned no results (pictured below). Had this post truly been made by Trump, it would have been widely reported. There is no indication that this post was anything other than satire.
(Source: Truth Social screenshot taken on Wed Nov 6 16:52:52 2024 UTC)
Other fact check agencies have also reviewed this claim, including CheckYourFact and PolitiFact.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims regarding the 2024 election can be found here.
