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| - In May 2026, an image circulated online purportedly showing a screenshot of a Truth Social post by President Donald Trump accusing former President Joe Biden of being a Russian agent and fellow former President Barack Obama of sometimes appearing as Biden in a "very well made Hollywood mask."
One person who shared the screengrab wrote (archived), "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your damn lunatic of a President. Impeach him. Now." The alleged post, dated May 12, 2026, read:
SLEEPY JOE was a RUSSIAN AGENT! He was invited to MOSCOW in 1987 and that's when he became compromised! That's why RUSSIA helped him STEAL the 2020 election from ME! They even used CHINA to spread THE FAKE COVID VIRUS using 5G towers and inside WAYFAIR FURNITURE! The "Joe Biden" that sometimes did press conferences was actually BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA in a VERY WELL made HOLLYWOOD MASK!! Everyone now knows that. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.
The image circulated on Facebook (archived), X (archived) and Threads (archived). Snopes readers also contacted us to ask if Trump had posted these comments.
In short, the post is fake. Reviews of Truth Social and Trump's Truth, a website that archives the president's Truth Social feed every few minutes, found no trace of the post on or around May 12, 2026. For example, a search for "SLEEPY JOE was a RUSSIAN AGENT!" on Trump's Truth returned no such post.
A White House press office spokesperson also said via email on May 18 that the post in question is fake.
The screenshot spread shortly after Trump posted a flurry of messages and content on his Truth Social account. Snopes previously documented that the president posted 55 times in three hours from late May 11 to early May 12. The time stamp on the fake post is 3:11 a.m. on May 12, during a gap between Trump's 55-post spree and later posts on May 12. If the fake post were authentic, Snopes would have recorded it in our previous fact check. We did not.
It is not clear who first posted the alleged screengrab or if it was originally intended to be satirical.
Some of the remarks in the fake post address similar themes that Trump covered in his 55 authentic posts, which could explain why some people believed it was authentic.
For example, though there is no evidence that Trump actually accused Obama of appearing as Biden in a mask, one post (archived) on the president's profile during the May 11-12 posting spree did accuse Obama and others of covertly running the Biden administration.
Trump's Truth Social account shared an X post accusing Obama, former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Antony Blinken and "the Deep State cabal" of signing documents with autopens "while running the country into the ground."
(Truth Social)
Trump has long falsely claimed that official documents Biden signed by autopen were void. During his second administration, Trump replaced a photo of Biden in the White House's "Presidential Walk of Fame" with a photo of an autopen.
There is also no evidence Trump actually claimed Biden was a Russian agent and that Biden's allegiance to Russia helped him win the 2020 presidential election. Snopes has, incidentally, previously investigated a claim that the Soviet Union recruited Trump as a spy in 1987. We found no evidence supporting that rumor.
During his May 11-12 posting spree, Trump did share (archived) an X post that accused Obama of "cook[ing] up" the "Russia Hoax," Trump's name for a series of U.S. investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election that Trump won.
(Truth Social)
The investigations broadly accused Russia of interfering in the election in Trump's favor. In 2019, special counsel Robert Mueller published a report saying the investigations found no evidence that Trump's campaign colluded with Russia but did not completely exonerate him.
Trump has alleged that the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election unfairly or illegally targeted him.
Snopes has not investigated whether Trump's claim, that Obama "cooked up" the investigations into Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential campaign, is true.
Trump is a frequent target of social media post fakery. Snopes has previously investigated numerous claims that involved fake Truth Social posts attributed to the president.
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