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| - A rumor spread online in late January 2026 that U.S. President Donald Trump made a post on social media that appeared to celebrate the extremist group known as the Proud Boys for being a part of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and credit himself with "clearing the Ghettos of Minnesota."
Users on Threads (archived) and Facebook (archived) shared the claim amid unrest in Minneapolis after 37-year-old Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse at a Veteran's Affairs hospital, died at the hands of Border Patrol agents on Jan. 24, 2026.
Some users sharing the purported post took it at face value, while others reached out to Snopes via email asking us to verify its authenticity.
The purported post read in full:
I am clearing the Ghettos of Minnesota of liberal foreign scum and radical lunatic leftists. I am so "Proud" of my ICE "Boys".. after all they stood back and stood ready, and now we are unleashing retribution and saving the soil from invaders. And given our successful ongoing round ups, I'm thinking midterms might not be necessary. Thank you and stay proud boys.
(Threads user creativeeusa)
The alleged post from Trump was fake.
A search of the president's Truth Social account and an online archive of all of Trump's social media posts revealed no such post.
Trump did in fact post about the events taking place in Minnesota, saying he had "a very good call" with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, but made no comments that matched those in the fake post that spread online.
The purported screenshot does not match Trump's actual Truth Social page. The avatar differs from his stylized portrait featuring an American flag, the social media platform's "ReTruths" label for reshared posts is missing, and the date and time of the post are not shown.
The engagement metrics featured on the fake post — 720 comments, 1.42K reposts, 4.92K likes — also match those of other debunked Trump posts, suggesting it may have been generated using a template or by a fake post generator.
The fake post was likely meant to evoke parallels to Trump's past comments about the Proud Boys, whom the Anti-Defamation League describes as "a right-wing extremist group" with a history of using violence, harassment and intimidation to advance misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+, antisemitic and white supremacist views.
During the first U.S. presidential debate against then-President Joe Biden in September 2020, Trump was asked to denounce white supremacist groups such as the Proud Boys but instead said, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by, but I'll tell you what. Somebody's gotta do something about 'antifa' and the left."
The Associated Press reported in January 2025 that Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, and three of his lieutenants were convicted of seditious conspiracy for a violent plot to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden after the 2020 election. The convictions were related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Tarrio was serving a 22-year prison sentence, the longest of any Capitol riot case, before Trump pardoned him that month, according to the AP.
During a news conference about the pardons, Trump called the prisoners' sentences "ridiculous and excessive."
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