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| - A rumor circulating online in the weeks before the 2025 U.S. presidential inauguration claimed Hunter Biden tried to humiliate Barron Trump at a charity gala. Biden is the son of former President Joe Biden, and Trump is the youngest son of President Donald Trump. One Snopes reader asked in an email, "[A YouTube video shows] a narrator stating that at a gala, Hunter Biden spoke about Barron Trump, then Barron Trump spoke afterwards. Is this fake?"
Several social media users shared the rumor on Facebook, Instagram and X. Most of their posts linked to YouTube videos telling the purportedly genuine story. One nearly 11-minute video (archived) posted on the Hidden Stories YouTube channel on Dec. 29, 2024, with more than 750,000 views, was titled "Hunter Biden Tries to Humiliate Barron Trump at Gala – Barron's Response Leaves Everyone Speechless!"
In the video, a narrator tells the story of Barron Trump attending the "Metropolitan Charity Gala." While speaking into a microphone, Hunter Biden attempts to shame him for living a life of riches and claims he didn't care about charitable works. In a graceful response, Trump says he previously partnered with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and committed $50 million of his inheritance to addiction treatment centers. Trump then invites Biden to join him in forming the Trump-Biden Youth Initiative, focusing on addiction prevention and treatment for young Americans.
However, this rumor was false. The clip on the Hidden Stories YouTube channel displayed a disclaimer in its description reading, "The stories presented on this channel are entirely fictional and crafted solely for entertainment. Any resemblance to real events, individuals or situations is purely coincidental and unintentional. These narratives are not intended to depict, reference or represent any actual occurrences, persons, or entities."
Even with the disclaimer about fiction, the comments under the video displaying the most likes indicated users believed the story was true. One user's remark with more than 1,100 likes read, "I support Barron Trump. He is a smart young man." Another commenter referenced Hunter Biden's much-publicized past of dealing with drug addiction, writing, "Hunter needs to shut his mouth and not criticize Barron T. Hunter has no room to talk about anyone for he is no one's role model."
The video displayed the YouTube-provided label for "altered or synthetic content," referencing the fact the clip featured narration, scripting, editing and visuals all generated by artificial-intelligence tools.
Google searches for a "Metropolitan Charity Gala" and "Trump-Biden Youth Initiative" yielded no credible articles from news media outlets. Further, in another sign of the rumor's falsity, the YouTube video's AI-generated narrator did not mention a date, time, city or state in which the purported gala occurred.
We previously reported about other similar YouTube videos featuring made-up stories and elements generated by AI. For example, one such false story claimed a flight attendant humiliated Google CEO Sundar Pichai, while another fictional story said staff at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport asked Sasha Obama to leave.
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