Did U.S. President Donald Trump show a Fox News host a Trump 2028 hat placed on the wall in the Oval Office? No, that's not true: The viral video was digitally altered. The original Fox News segment showed Trump unveiling the Declaration of Independence.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on April 25, 2025. It opened:
OMG! Trump is shamelessly promoting his new cap in the White House. If Biden had done this, Fox would be apoplectic for weeks. Yet here is
@FoxNews promoting this unethical asshole and dictator who wants to be President until he dies.
The 16-second video shared on X purported to show Trump unveiling a frame with a Trump 2028 hat (or its image) in it. The claim appeared online, as such hats actually went on sale in the official Trump store.
Yet, as of this writing, the sitting U.S. president hasn't shown that item hanging in the Oval Office, framed and protected from the sunlight by glass and curtains.
The footage originated from a Fox News segment detailing an "exclusive tour of the Oval Office" given to one of the TV channel's hosts, Laura Ingraham, by Trump himself. The material was broadcast on March 20, 2025.
Just before the fragment reused in the post on X begins, Trump says, moving to the closed curtains (at the 3:08 mark):
This is the Declaration of Independence.
The composite image below demonstrates that what was behind the curtains was not a Trump 2028 hat:
(Source: YouTube screenshots by Lead Stories)
One hint that the footage on X was not authentic was the presence of the watermark in the bottom right corner for Dilley Meme Team a website that offers satirical political videos:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
Two AI detectors -- InVid (archived here) and DeepFake-o-meter (archived here) -- confirmed that the video on X was digitally altered, likely by generative AI:
(Source: InVid screenshot by Lead Stories)
(Source: DeepFake-o-meter screenshot by Lead Stories)
As Lead Stories wrote, the same Fox News footage was previously manipulated to purport to show the "Bitcoin whitepaper".
Donald Trump became president for the second time on January 20, 2025 (archived here). The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (archived here) limits the total number of presidential terms to two.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Donald Trump can be found here. Stories about current events are here.
