STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.
Did President Donald Trump post he would impose capital controls because "TERRIBLE things" were happening to "our BEAUTIFUL AND GREAT STOCK MARKET" and that he would put a tariff on "foreign selling"? No, that's not true: A viral screenshot of what looked like a Truth Social post has been digitally manipulated. Trump's actual account did not show such a message and none was indexed by Google.
The screenshot appeared in a post on X (archived here) published on March 6, 2025 with a comment that read:
WOW!
This is what the image looked like:
(Image: screenshot taken from x.com by Lead Stories on March 6, 2025 at 18:11:15 UTC)
The text in the screenshot read:
Very upset to see TERRIBLE things happening to our BEAUTIFUL AND GREAT STOCK MARKET. It seems foreigners may be selling, but wait until they discover CAPITAL CONTROLS! From now on, we will put a tariff on foreign selling to PROTECT OUR STOCKS!
Lead Stories searched for the phrase "BEAUTIFUL AND GREAT STOCK MARKET" on Trump's Truth Social account (archived here) and did not find any matching posts.
Trump's Truth, a website that archives Trump's Truth Social posts did not have any posts indexed with that phrase either (archived here).
A Google search for the phrase "BEAUTIFUL AND GREAT STOCK MARKET" limited to links containing truthsocial.com/@realdonaldtrump using the "site:" search operator returned no results (archived here), indicating Google didn't recently index such a post.
The account that originally posted the screenshot later admitted it was satire:
Fellas, kinda stunned my satirical Trump tweet about imposing capital controls / Bessent Lutnick investigating the "Governor of Canada" for market manipulation aren't immediately recognized as satire.
-- Cluseau Investments (@blondesnmoney) March 6, 2025
The world is crazy, but not that crazy yet.
Updates:
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2025-03-06T18:27:01Z 2025-03-06T18:27:01Z Added reaction from the account that posted the screenshot
