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| - In the early hours of Jan. 3, 2026, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a military strike in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and captured the country's leader, Nicolás Maduro. After the operation, Trump declared that the United States would "run" Venezuela.
A little over a week later, people on social media claimed Trump posted on his social media website Truth Social a fake Wikipedia screenshot that referred to him as the acting president of Venezuela. People shared the claim on X (archived), Reddit (archived), Instagram (archived) and Facebook (archived). Readers searched Snopes to find out whether the rumor was true.
The claim was true. Trump posted the fake screenshot (archived) on Jan. 11, 2026. The Team Trump Instagram account (archived) shared Trump's post.
The screenshot posted by Trump accurately reflected his real Wikipedia page at the time of posting — with the major exception that the real page did not include acting president of Venezuela among Trump's offices. This was true of the most recent version of the Wikipedia page at the time of writing and of the version of the page that was live at the time Trump posted the screenshot to Truth Social. No edit in the page's history added that title.
Additionally, the formatting of the offices held by Trump in his Truth Social screenshot was not in the style typical for Wikipedia articles of public officeholders. The style changed between the two offices listed in Trump's screenshot, neither of which was consistent with Trump's real Wikipedia page or the Wikipedia page for Delcy Rodríguez, the actual acting president of Venezuela at the time of the post.
In the screenshot posted by Trump, the next line after "Acting President of Venezuela" said "Incumbent January 2026." In that same screenshot was Trump's title as the "45th & 47th President of the United States." The line that followed that title read "Incumbent," and then a separate line below that one read, "Assumed Office January 20, 2025."
On Trump's real Wikipedia page, "45th & 47th President of the United States," "Incumbent," "Assumed Office" and "January 20, 2025" were all on separate lines. This was consistent on both a
Rodríguez's Wikipedia page listed her office at the time of writing as "Acting President of Venezuela," with only "President of Venezuela" hyperlinked, which was in contrast to Trump's screenshot which also hyperlinked "Acting." In the next line was just the word "Incumbent," followed by a separate line for "Assumed Office" and another line for "5 January 2026." Before listing her other incumbent offices, Wikipedia also had a line that read "Vice President Herself" and a final line that read "Preceded By Nicolás Maduro," neither of which appeared in the Trump screenshot.
For further reading, Snopes has fact-checked many other claims about the Trump administration's capture of Maduro.
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