Did actor Matthew McConaughey say or write that "if Kamala Harris had become president of the U.S., Trump would be in prison"? No, that's not true: The actor's representatives told Lead Stories that it was a fake quote. Such words did not appear on McConaughey's social media accounts or in credible media reports.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on May 9, 2026. The caption began:
Do you agree with Matt McConaughey?
The post shared an image of the actor paired with what was presented as his quote:
If Kamala Harris had become president of the U.S., Trump would be in prison, the Straits [sic] of Hormuz would be open, Ukraine would be victorious, gas would be under $3 a gallon, and the U.S. would STILL be respected and supported around the world!
This is what the image attached to the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @damaan4u33 on X.)
A search on Google News for the exact wording from the quote (archived here) did not show credible media reports corroborating the claim.
Lead Stories also searched the actor's account on X (archived here), but that did not produce any confirmation, either:
(Image source: X.)
McConaughey's official account on Instagram, manually reviewed by Lead Stories, did not display the quote in question or the viral image.
Representatives for the actor contacted by Lead Stories via email on May 11, 2026, confirmed on the same day, also via email, that the complete quote was fabricated and cannot be attributed to the actor.
ZeroGPT said that the image of McConaughey was "97% FAKE":
(Image source: ZeroGPT.)
Sightengine concluded that the odds of the picture being a product of generative AI were 99%:
(Image source: Sightengine.)
In a similar image (archived here), used in news articles (archived here), the 56-year-old actor (archived here) appeared older, with a thicker beard. That photo predated the claim reviewed in this fact check by five months. The Getty Images caption (archived here) confirmed the photo is a real image of McConaughey taken on December 10, 2025, in Los Angeles:
SiriusXM John Mayer's guest Matthew McConaughey at SiriusXM Studios on December 10, 2025, in Los Angeles, California.
