Category: Fact Checking

Claim:

A photo authentically shows future U.S. first lady Melania Trump, then Melania Knauss, posing partially nude for modeling pictures on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane.

Rating:

A rumor that circulated online in November 2025 claimed a years-old photo authentically showed future U.S. first lady Melania Trump, then Melania Knauss, posing partially nude for modeling pictures on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane.

Users shared this claim on Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads, TikTok (archived) and X (archived), including an image meme reading, “Fun fact: This famous picture of first lady Melania Trump was taken on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane.” 

Snopes received inquiries about this rumor via email and a reader’s post in our Snopes Tips Facebook group, which asked, “Is this Melania? Was she on Epstein’s plane?”

In short, users shared an authentic Melania Trump picture with captions that were false, so we’ve rated this claim miscaptioned. The photo was real and was not manipulated with artificial intelligence or other image-editing software. GQ magazine’s January 2000 issue credited photographer Antoine Verglas with capturing the pictures on President Donald Trump’s former Boeing 727 — not an Epstein-owned aircraft.

We contacted a spokesperson for the first lady and also Verglas to ask about this matter. We will update this article if we receive more information.

GQ republished photos in 2016

On Nov. 8, 2016 — the date of Donald Trump’s first Election Day victory — GQ reported once again about the pictures from the photo shoot for the January 2000 issue, including noting where Verglas captured the images:

Sixteen years ago we profiled Donald Trump’s then-girlfriend Melania Knauss. Now his wife, Melania featured in our naked profile shoot on his customised Boeing 727 wearing handcuffs, wielding diamonds and holding a chrome pistol (it was the lads mag era after all). It makes for some interesting reading today, considering Donald Trump’s success in the US election…

[…]

“We were bombarded by requests to shoot Melania,” GQ editor Dylan Jones said when asked about our January 2000 nude shoot with Melania Trump, after we had dug through the archives and published the images online in March 2016. “Given that she was obviously so keen to be featured in GQ, we came up with a rather kitsch and camp story for her to feature in.” Donald Trump also requested that photographs be delivered to his office. “We framed the cover and a selection of prints and sent them as soon as we could.”

The WorthPoint antiques, art and collectibles archiving company hosted images of the original print edition of GQ’s January 2000 issue, including a picture showing a photo caption mentioning Trump’s Boeing 727 as the shoot’s location.

Melania Trump defended nude modeling photos

In September 2024, Melania Trump — ahead of the release of her memoir, “Melania” — shared a statement (archived) on social media defending her nude modeling photos. The statement read:

Melania Trump speaks about her nude modeling work:

“Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work? The more pressing question is – why has the media chosen to scrutinize my celebration of the human form in a fashion photoshoot? Are we no longer able to appreciate the beauty of the human body? Throughout history, master artists have revered the human shape, evoking profound emotions and admiration. We should honor our bodies and embrace the timeless tradition of using art as a powerful means of self expression.”

She also shared a video (archived) in which she read the words from the statement:

For further reading, we previously reported about a rumor claiming Melania Trump worked as an escort before meeting Donald Trump at a party hosted by Epstein confidant and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

Sources

After six congressional Democrats released a video advising members of the U.S. military and national security community to “refuse illegal orders,” President Donald Trump said the lawmakers should be tried in court for “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” But legal experts told us this was not sedition and that the legislators were restating the law that only lawful orders must be followed.

“Sedition is trying to overthrow the government with force or violence,” Eric R. Carpenter, a professor of law at Florida International University College of Law, said in an email to us. “In the video, the elected officials are just telling service members to follow the law. They are not telling service members to overthrow the government.”

The White House later said that Trump didn’t mean the Democrats should face the death penalty, but the press secretary argued that the video encouraged troops to defy the president.

Here, we cover what the lawmakers said, how Trump responded, and what legal experts have said about the video and the president’s claims.

What’s in the Video?

The 90-second video was posted on social media and online on Nov. 18 and features Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, and Reps. Chris Deluzzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. All are either military veterans or former intelligence officials.

In the video, the lawmakers state their credentials and remind members of the military and national security community that they swore to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. 

“Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home,” Deluzzio, a former Navy officer, and Crow, a former Army ranger and paratrooper, say, in turn.

Kelly, a former Navy captain, then says, “Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders,” which Slotkin, once a CIA officer, repeats for emphasis. Crow then adds that military members “must refuse illegal orders,” before the other lawmakers say “no one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”

The ad concludes with the members of Congress saying, “Don’t give up the ship,” a reference to a last command attributed to James Lawrence, a Navy captain, during the War of 1812.

The senators and representatives never mention a specific unlawful order they believe was given. But the New York Times reported on Nov. 18 that Slotkin, who organized the video, “said that she had heard from active-duty troops who were concerned about the legality of strikes that have targeted people accused by the Trump administration of trafficking narcotics by sea.”

“Some wondered whether they could be held personally liable for the deaths, she said,” according to the Times. (We have written that some legal experts have said the U.S. strikes on boats off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia were “not lawful.”)

In an ABC News interview on Nov. 23, Slotkin said she was “not aware of things that are illegal” that Trump has ordered the military to do. But she said “certainly there are some legal gymnastics that are going on with these Caribbean strikes.” She also said she has concerns about “the use of U.S. military on American shores,” and she noted that “we’ve seen now the courts overturn” Trump’s “deployment of U.S. military into our streets,” including in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

The video “was basically a warning to say, like, if you’re asked to do something, particularly against American citizens, you have the ability to go to your JAG officer and push back,” she said, referring to military lawyers known as judge advocates general.

Trump’s Response

Two days after the video was posted, Trump responded on social media, calling the Democratic lawmakers traitors guilty of sedition.

“It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.” 

In another post, he labeled it, “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

He also amplified a post from another user, who wrote, “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”

His comments elicited a response from the six Democrats, who issued a joint statement the same day.

“What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law. Our servicemembers should know that we have their backs as they fulfill their oath to the Constitution and obligation to follow only lawful orders. It is not only the right thing to do, but also our duty,” they said.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified in a Nov. 20 press briefing that Trump doesn’t think the lawmakers should be executed. She said he only responded that way because members of Congress “conspired together to orchestrate a video message” encouraging members of the military and national security apparatus “to defy the president’s lawful orders.”

“The sanctity of our military rests on the chain of command and if that chain of command is broken, it can lead to people getting killed. It can lead to chaos. And that’s what these members of Congress who swore an oath to abide by the Constitution are essentially encouraging,” she said.

But the Democrats said to “refuse illegal orders” — not “lawful” ones. It’s a crime to disobey “any lawful general order or regulation,” according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Carpenter told us there is a “strong presumption” that military orders are lawful and must be followed by members of the military. “They refuse orders at their own risk,” he cautioned.

He said that service members have a legal defense for any actions taken while they are following legal orders, but that defense doesn’t apply if they are following unlawful orders. “So, the basic rule is, follow orders unless they are obviously unlawful.”

Did the Lawmakers Commit Sedition?

As for Trump’s sedition claim, generally, federal law says that “seditious conspiracy” occurs when multiple people conspire to “overthrow,” “put down,” “destroy by force,” “levy war against” or “oppose by force” the U.S. government.

The penalty for seditious conspiracy is a maximum of 20 years in prison, a fine or both – but not death. (Active-duty and certain retired members of the armed forces who commit “sedition,” as defined by the UCMJ, may be punished by death, the military code says.)

But legal experts in addition to Carpenter told us that the message in the Democrats’ video does not amount to sedition.

“Trump’s efforts to cast this legal speech as seditious is nonsense,” Victor M. Hansen, a professor of law at New England Law in Boston, said in an email.

“These statements are not seditious or any evidence of a conspiracy,” the former Army JAG officer said. “Simply reminding service members of their legal rights and obligations is not criminal in any way.”

“It is so far from seditious behavior,” Berit Berger, a former federal prosecutor, said in a Nov. 20 CNN interview, noting that sedition “is a specific crime” that “requires advocating” or “planning to overthrow the government through force.”

For example, several people who plotted and participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to prevent the transfer of presidential power were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Berger said sedition is rarely prosecuted and “it’s very hard to charge somebody with sedition based just on something they say” since “people have a right to criticize their government, to say things, even inflammatory things, that the government might not like.”

Brenner M. Fissell, a professor of law at Villanova University and vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice, told us that current law prevents the seditious conspiracy statute from being applied as “broadly” as it was written. He pointed to the Supreme Court’s 1969 ruling in the First Amendment case Brandenburg v. Ohio.

“Under the Brandenburg test, speech would have to be intended to produce imminent lawlessness, and also likely to produce imminent lawlessness,” he said. “The lawmakers’ video would fail the imminence requirement, but it also does not advocate lawlessness — it is merely re-stating the military law” that “only lawful orders require obedience.”

“So, the video is not sedition or seditious conspiracy,” Fissell said.

Carpenter said that if an elected official “is retired and an officer, then they could be prosecuted for conduct unbecoming an officer.” But even that would be a “stretch” in this case, he argued, because “they were just telling service members to follow the basic legal structure.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Nov. 24 that Kelly, the Arizona senator who retired as a high-ranking Navy official, is now under investigation for his participation in the video.

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In November 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump posted to his Truth Social platform (archived) that the “2025 Thanksgiving dinner under Trump is 25% lower than 2024 Thanksgiving dinner under Biden, according to Walmart.”

The White House’s rapid response account on X (archived) later quoted John Furner, Walmart’s CEO, announcing that Walmart’s Thanksgiving meal basket was “25% less than the basket we had last year” to support the president’s claim.

Trump’s full post was as follows:

2025 Thanksgiving dinner under Trump is 25% lower than 2024 Thanksgiving dinner under Biden, according to Walmart. My cost are lower than the Democrats on everything, especially oil and gas! So the Democrats “affordability” issue is DEAD! STOP LYING!!!

This claim was true when only considering the price of the basket itself each year. However, the contents of the basket differ from year to year, and the 2025 Walmart Thanksgiving meal basket had fewer items in it than did the 2024 basket. Additionally, Walmart’s basket, billed as “inflation free,” is not a good measure of affordability from one year to the next. For these reasons, we’ve refrained from rating this claim.

In the FAQ section of Walmart’s October 2025 announcement of its annual Thanksgiving meal basket, the company said its 2024 basket was about $55 while the 2025 basket cost $39.93, “which is about 25% less than last year.”

A Walmart spokesperson confirmed these numbers for Snopes in an email. Additionally, Walmart CEO John Furner posted to his LinkedIn account (archived) that the 2025 meal basket was 25% cheaper than the 2024 basket. The White House’s rapid response account included a screenshot of this post when it quoted Furner.

However, that same FAQ section of the 2025 announcement that also noted that Walmart’s meal basket “will differ each year based on customer insights and preferences.”

We confirmed fluctuation from basket to basket by comparing the list of items from last year’s basket to this year’s basket. The 2024 Walmart Thanksgiving basket included 29 total items, whereas the 2025 basket had 22 items.

Snopes crunched the numbers on the individual items included in both the 2024 and 2025 Thanksgiving meal baskets using AisleGopher, a third-party website that tracks the prices of items sold at Walmart over time. We compared 2024 and 2025 prices for items in the Thanksgiving basket for both years, as well as for items that were in just one basket or the other. While we could cross-check which items were available in 2025 based on the current basket’s online store page (archived), Snopes had to determine the items in the 2024 basket by picking out items that most closely resembled the name and weight of the items listed in the 2024 basket’s announcement.

While AisleGopher’s data was the best source for tracking Walmart’s prices from 2024 to 2025 that Snopes could find, it does have some flaws. For a few of the items, AisleGopher did not have price data that dated back to Thanksgiving 2024 and/or the summer leading up to it. In these cases, Snopes used the earliest price available. As a result, the data in the table below are estimates collected to show general trends in pricing from year to year.

The Walmart spokesperson told Snopes in their email that the items in the 2025 basket were about 14% cheaper than they were at the same time of year in 2024. That roughly matches the 15% price decrease Snopes found from comparing the prices of all items that appeared in the 2025 basket against their 2024 prices. Items that appeared in both baskets showed a 9% drop in prices from 2024 to 2025. 

The prices of items that appeared in the 2025 basket but not the 2024 basket fell 17%. This is in contrast to items included in the 2024 basket but not the 2025 basket; those items were 3% cheaper in 2024 than they were in 2025.

The discrepancy could be explained, in part, by how Walmart handles groceries that are popular during the Thanksgiving season.

Walmart called its 2024 basket “inflation-free,” using that exact terminology thrice in its announcement of the basket. And the pricing of the items in the baskets outside of the Thanksgiving season supports this.

According to Snopes’ analysis of AisleGopher data, most items in either basket were significantly more expensive prior to September or October, then sharply dropped in price one or both years. While not the case for every item on the list, many of the items were more expensive in summer 2025 than they were in summer 2024.

In fact, everything in the two baskets was about 18% more expensive during the summer than at Thanksgiving, and 1% more expensive in summer 2025 than in summer 2024. However, there was a far starker difference in summer prices for the few items that appeared in both the 2024 basket and the 2025; those items were 19% more expensive in summer 2025 than they were the year prior.

Therefore, the price of Walmart’s Thanksgiving basket was not a good indicator for affordability and inflation from one year to the next, even when comparing the prices of the individual items used to create the basket in 2024 and 2025.

A claim (archived) circulated online in November 2025 that U.S. President Donald Trump spent his first Thanksgiving as president in 2017 with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Questions about Trump’s whereabouts coincided with the U.S. House Oversight Committee’s release of a trove of documents relating to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in a New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

Trump and Epstein had a well-documented friendship in the early 2000s. The exact circumstances of how the friendship ended remained unclear. Trump reportedly kicked Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club in 2007, 10 years before online claims said the pair spent Thanksgiving together.  

One X user who shared the claim about Trump and Epstein wrote, “It turns out that Trump had Thanksgiving dinner with Jeffrey Epstein in 2017,… during his first term. Even though Trump lied and said he had, ‘cut all ties with Epstein,’ when he ‘found out about the underaged girls,’… years and years earlier.” The user also shared what appeared to be an AI-generated image of Trump and Epstein having a meal together.

(X user @Roshan_Rinaldi)

The claim also circulated on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived), Reddit (archived) and TikTok (archived). Snopes readers wrote in, asking if the claim was true.

The claim appeared to come from a post on the @TheDemocrats X account, the official account of the Democratic Party. According to screenshots (archived, archived), that post claimed an email exchange from the House Oversight Committee release showed that Trump spent Thanksgiving with Epstein in 2017. The post did not appear on the @TheDemocrats X account at the time of this writing.

The email exchange the post referred to between Epstein and Faith Kates, reportedly a fashion management executive, did suggest that Epstein and Trump were both in or near Palm Beach, Florida, during Thanksgiving 2017. At the time, Epstein owned a mansion in Palm Beach. According to Roll Call’s public schedule for the president, Trump spent five days at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach from Nov. 21 to 26, 2017. Roll Call is an insider publication that covers all things Capitol Hill. 

In the released email exchange dated Nov. 23, 2017, Kates asked Epstein “When are you back in NYC?” suggesting that Epstein was not at his Manhattan townhouse. Later in the exchange, Kates asked, “Who else is down there?” to which Epstein replied, “david fizel, hanson. trump.” Given that Roll Call’s Presidential Calendar and reports at the time said Trump was in Mar-a-Lago, the email exchange suggested “down there” meant Palm Beach.

While both Epstein and Trump were likely in Palm Beach over Thanksgiving 2017 (the holiday fell on Nov. 23 that year), Epstein did not directly say in the email exchange that he had or would spend time with the president while in Florida. We did not find other reputable reports that Epstein and Trump spent time together during Thanksgiving 2017. Due to the possibility of a private meeting between the two, we leave this claim unrated.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson did not reply to an emailed question about whether Trump spent time with Epstein during Thanksgiving 2017. Instead, Jackson said via email, “These emails prove literally nothing. Democrats and the mainstream media are desperately trying to use this hoax as a distraction to talk about anything other than Democrats getting utterly defeated by President Trump in the [recent government] shutdown fight.” 

Snopes reached out to communications staff at the Democratic National Committee, which runs the @TheDemocrats X account, to confirm whether it posted and deleted the X post in question, and why. We also reached out to Kates, the fashion industry executive who reportedly corresponded with Epstein, to confirm her role in the correspondence and whether Epstein told her he spent Thanksgiving with Trump. We await replies to our queries.

Trump’s calendar did not show meeting with Epstein

According to Roll Call and reports at the time, Trump arrived at Palm Beach International Airport on the afternoon of Nov. 21, 2017. Trump had no public events scheduled on Nov. 22, but met with pool reporters in the morning and went to Trump International Golf Club around 9:30 am, according to Roll Call. Trump posted (archived) on X on Nov. 22 that he would be “having meetings and working the phones from the Winter White House in Florida (Mar-a-Lago).”

On Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 23, 2017, Roll Call’s calendar showed Trump thanked members of the military on a virtual call and visited Coast Guard members at Lake Worth Inlet Station before heading back to Trump International Golf Club around 11 a.m. News reports and official records corroborated the two Nov. 23 engagements in or near Palm Beach.

Trump had no public events scheduled on Nov. 24, 25 or 26, 2017, according to Roll Call. He reportedly played golf with professional golfers Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson on Nov. 24.

Much of the time Trump spent in West Palm Beach was unaccounted for in Roll Call’s calendar. According to a CNN report at the time that cited spokespersons from the White House, Trump planned to celebrate the holiday with family at Mar-a-Lago — the private member’s club he reportedly kicked Epstein out of 10 years previously. It was unclear exactly who attended festivities at Mar-a-Lago.

According to a Guardian analysis of the House Oversight Committee’s document release, Epstein stayed informed about Trump’s travel as it related to his own after the pair fell out. The Guardian reported that Epstein would discuss Trump’s travel with employees as both regularly flew in and out of Palm Beach International Airport.

According to the report, Epstein continued to discuss Trump’s whereabouts in New York City and Palm Beach and received news articles about Trump more generally from his associates after the two fell out and Trump became president.

Snopes previously reported on the content of the House Oversight Committee’s email release, including whether Epstein called Trump “the dog that hasn’t barked” or alleged Trump “knew about the girls,” referring to victims of Epstein’s alleged sex crimes.

Sources

Claim:

On June 3, 2013, X user @Marco_Acortes posted, “Corona virus….its coming.”

Rating:

Context

There’s no reason to believe the user was referring to COVID-19 in particular. The first reports of coronavirus — a group of viruses that includes COVID-19 and other diseases — go back to the 1930s; coronavirus did not originate with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019. In 2013, one form of coronavirus was spreading in the Middle East.

In November 2025, an alleged X post from 2013 resurfaced that read, “Corona virus….its coming.” Screenshots of the post circulated on multiple platforms, including YouTube (archived), Instagram (archived) and Reddit (archived), garnering millions of views.

The post is real. X user @Marco_Acortes posted “Corona virus….its coming” on the site then known as Twitter on June 3, 2013 (archived):

Dozens of commenters appeared shocked or confused as to how someone in 2013 could have seemingly predicted the COVID-19 pandemic, commonly referred to as “corona” or “coronavirus,” which killed at least 7 million people worldwide between January 2020 and November 2024.

We were unable to reach the user for comment regarding what influenced or inspired the post, and the account does not show any activity after 2016. 

However, there’s no reason to believe the user was referring to COVID-19 in particular. The term “coronavirus” has been in the medical lexicon since 1968, when scientists first named a group of viruses based on their microscopic crownlike structure. Scientists first observed diseases caused by viruses of this type in chickens in the early 1930s. It wasn’t until the 1960s that researchers discovered the first strains of coronavirus in humans, and in 1968, an “informal group of virologists” submitted their findings to the scientific journal Nature, coining the term:

COVID-19 is also not the only deadly form of coronavirus found in humans. Ten years before the X post appeared, an outbreak of a strain of coronavirus in the same genus as the virus that causes COVID-19 killed 774 people from more than two dozen countries.

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, scientists have observed seven coronavirus diseases in humans (they typically manifest in mild, coldlike symptoms), though only three have had severe pathogenic impact on populations over the past few decades: an initial outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV) from 2002-03, periodic flare-ups of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) since 2012 and COVID-19 (SARS-2-CoV), which resulted in the 2020 pandemic that lasted just over three years.

In June 2013, when the user wrote the X post, there was a fresh outbreak of MERS in Saudi Arabia. News releases by the World Health Organization in June 2013 detailed additional cases that spread around the same time the post appeared online. While it’s impossible to know what exactly inspired the user behind the post to warn his followers about coronavirus, the news reports coming out of the Middle East around the same time may have influenced the post.

After the first SARS-CoV outbreak beginning in 2002, the user was also not the only one warning about the future impact of coronavirus. 

Even before 2013, scientists claimed that a coronavirus pandemic could occur again at a much larger scale, given the right conditions. For example, one scientific study (archived) — initially submitted in 2012 — claimed SARS-CoV originated from bats, and possibly still existed in humans. “These existing but undetected SARS-CoVs have a large potential to evolve into highly virulent strains when favorable climate conditions occur, highlighting a potential risk for the reemergence of SARS,” the study read.

In sum, the 2013 post that read, “Corona virus….its coming,” is authentic, and while it’s not possible to know what exactly inspired the user to write it, humans have known about coronaviruses since the early 1930s — first in animals, then in humans and eventually on the scale of a global pandemic. Scientific studies published before the X post appeared warned of the potential impact of SARS-CoV potentially reemerging, making it possible the X user saw such reports to reach his conclusion.

Sources

Unpacking claim Ghislaine Maxwell confirmed Epstein had ‘secret tapes’ of Trump, Clinton

Aug. 30, 2025

Contrary to social media posts, the rumor wasn’t new in 2025 — it stemmed from a book published …

Read More

Claim:

An image shared online authentically shows a tree in Alaska encased in ice.

Rating:

As the cold and snow of winter approached many regions of the United States in November 2025, an image circulated online that purported to show a tree in Alaska encased in ice that formed a peculiar fungi-esque shape. 

Users on social media platforms such as Facebook (archived), X (archived) and Instagram (archived) shared the image, with some astounded by its beauty and others suspicious of its authenticity. 

One user sharing the image called it “a natural ice sculpture carved solely by the Alaskan winter.”

This surreal frozen formation looks almost otherworldly — yet it’s entirely real. Brooks Range, Northern Alaska 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/BpXeA6kpuJ

— Earth_Wanderer (@earth_tracker) November 19, 2025

The image was a fake and was likely created using generative artificial intelligence. 

Keen-eyed readers will note the branches around the bottom of the tree blur together in an unnatural way, one of the most obvious signs of AI-generated imagery. There are also tendrils of ice on the tree’s right side that do not appear to be connected to the larger structure. 

In addition, the shadows are wildly inconsistent, some not matching the position of the light source and others not matching the shape and depth of the spacing between branches.

Further, snow is highly reflective and would appear to be glistening in such a photo. Finally, it is unlikely the perfect rounded edges of all the surfaces in this image could occur naturally. 

(Ethereal Earth Facebook page/Snopes illustration)

A closer look around the edges of the primary tree revealed faded black lines in a grid shape, as though an outline of the tree’s structure was created to generate the image but were not entirely removed. 

The image appeared to originate from a Facebook account called Ethereal Earth, whose page displayed a history of sharing a mixture of authentic and AI-generated images. 

The page was identified as a “digital creator.” The description in its intro section read, “‘Ethereal Earth’ is all about jaw-dropping views. Some images may be depictions with sole purpose of sparking interest in Earth and especially nature” and included the hashtag “artwork.” Snopes reached out to the page’s manager about the image and will update this article if we receive a response. 

A reverse-image Google search revealed no posts of the image earlier than mid-November 2025, and there was no photographer credited in any of them. No credible outlets who cover nature or photography shared the image, and the top search result led back to the Ethereal Earth Facebook page. 

The AI-detection platform Hive Moderation determined a 99.5% chance that this photograph was AI-generated. While such platforms are not always 100% accurate, combined with the obvious visual indicators, we’ve rated this image as a fake.

(Hive Moderation)

Before sharing suspicious photographs of nature that purport to be authentic, consult Snopes’ tips for spotting AI-generated images. 

For further reading, we’ve also debunked Ai-generated images that purported to show a wolf protecting piglets from a mountain lion and a goose and bald eagle sharing a nest.

Claim:

A video authentically shows U.S. President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at a social gathering with young girls.

Rating:

For months, a video spread on social media, allegedly showing U.S. President Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at a social gathering with young girls. The clip started making rounds again shortly after the U.S. House Oversight Committee published thousands of pages of records tied to Epstein, who died in jail while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors.

One mid-November 2025 Instagram post (archived) captioned the video: “A normal clip of Tr-ump and Eps-tein watching girls dance in 1993.”

(Instagram user @antiemetic4u)

The purported footage spread across multiple platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube and Threads. 

However, the video was not authentic. It was based on a real photograph taken in 1997, but was most likely generated using artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The original image showed Trump, Epstein and Belgian model Ingrid Seynhaeve attending a Victoria’s Secret party in New York City. No children appeared in the original photo. As such, we’ve rated this claim as fake.

How the video was created

TinEye reverse image search results led us to a 2017 Reddit post (archived), titled, “New photo surfaces of Trump with paedophile Epstein at Victoria’s Secret lingerie party in 1997.” The post featured what appeared to be a photograph of a printed page and credited the image to photographer Marina Garnier.

(Reddit u/DrDuplicitous)

The photograph likely originated from the 2017 book “Filthy Rich: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein – The Billionaire’s Sex Scandal.” On Page 222 of the PDF version, the image was captioned: “Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, and (newly signed Trump Model) Ingrid Seynhaeve, attending the Victoria’s Secret Angels party at Laura Belle club in New York City on April 8, 1997 (Marina Garnier).” This caption matched the text partially visible in the Reddit post, suggesting the user had photographed a page from the book.

(“Filthy Rich: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein – The Billionaire’s Sex Scandal”)

The New York Post also published a seemingly enhanced version of the photo with the caption: “Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein and Ingrid Segrhaeve chat it up at Victoria’s Secret Lingerie Party in 1997. PAY PER USE.” However, it did not cite a source for the image.

As of this writing, we were unable to verify additional details about the original photograph or its origin.

Several other photographs from the 1997 Victoria’s Secret event featuring Trump were available through Getty Images. In these images, both Trump and Seynhaeve were wearing the same outfits as in the photo that appeared to have been used to generate the fake video.

(Getty Images)

Overall, the video in question displayed multiple signs of AI generation, including unnaturally smooth skin textures, unrealistic facial expressions and awkward movements. These characteristics indicated that the original 1997 photograph was likely transformed into a video using AI tools that applied motion to the still image and inserted a fabricated scene showing underage girls.

Independent fact-checking organizations, including Italian Open.Online and BBC Verify, also analyzed the clip and reached the conclusion that the footage was AI-generated.

In July 2025, we debunked a similar AI-generated video, allegedly showing Trump pointing at a preteen girl while standing with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former associate of Epstein. For broader context, check out our collection of 23 rumors we’ve examined regarding Trump and Epstein’s relationship.

Sources

Claim:

Mark Epstein, brother of convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, once sent his brother an email that suggested he ask former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon “if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.”

Rating:

The internet ran wild with speculation about U.S. President Donald Trump’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein following the release of more than 20,000 documents from the Epstein estate by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Nov. 12, 2025. 

The chatter included a notable amount of discussion over one email in particular, which allegedly showed an exchange between Epstein and his brother, real estate developer Mark Epstein.

According to social media users, particularly on X (archived, archived, archived), Mark Epstein purportedly asked his brother to inquire with a former White House adviser whether “Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.” In this usage, “blowing” is a reference to oral sex.

Speculation as to the identity of the so-called “Bubba” added to the fervor over the message.

The email between the brothers Epstein was authentic, confirmed by Snopes’ independent review of the Epstein documents released by the committee.

The email in question is labeled as “HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030719,” which matches its label in the files released by the committee. 

Below is the full context of the emails, reproduced in the order in which they were sent (emphasis ours): 

March 19, 2018

MARK EPSTEIN: How are you doing? A while back you mentioned that you were prediabetic. Has anything changed with that? What is your boy Donald up to now?

JEFFREY EPSTEIN: All good. Bannon with me

March 21, 2018

MARK EPSTEIN: Ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba?

JEFFREY EPSTEIN: and i thought- I had tsuris

MARK EPSTEIN: You and your boy Donnie can make a remake of the movie Get Hard. 

JEFFREY EPSTEIN: you mean DONNI TEE

MARK EPSTEIN: I’d rather be in Donni Dee’s shoes.

The email between the brothers, along with thousands of other documents released from the Epstein estate, can be viewed in a Google folder provided by the committee in its news release or can be read below. 

(House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform)

The “Bannon” referred to in the email appeared to be former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who was fired from his post in August 2017, about eight months before the email exchange in question. “Putin” is Vladimir Putin, president of Russia. 

Merriam-Webster defined the word “tsuris” as meaning “trouble” or “distress,” originating from Yiddish.

“Get Hard” was a 2015 comedy film starring Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart in which an accused white collar criminal (Ferrell) seeks advice from a man he assumes is an ex-con (Hart) about how to survive prison, not knowing the latter has no experience being incarcerated. 

Some Snopes readers and social media users speculated as to who “Bubba” might be referring to. Some suggested former President Bill Clinton, but Snopes has been unable to verify this. It was also unclear whether the message was in jest.

According to reporting by The Advocate, Mark Epstein issued a statement addressing the rumors regarding “Bubba” referring to Clinton. Epstein told the outlet, “the reference to ‘Bubba’ in this correspondence is not, in any way, a reference to former President Bill Clinton.” 

Further, he insisted the emails “were simply part of a humorous private exchange between two brothers and were never meant for public release or to be interpreted as serious remarks,” The Advocate reported. 

For further reading about the Nov. 12, 2025, release of documents from Epstein’s estate, check out Snopes’ reporting on the Epstein emails thus far.

Sources

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This false story originated from a Facebook page hosting numerous fabricated stories about U.S. …

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Claim:

An authentic news report from November 2025 showed a woman calling the police on her Black neighbor, who turned out to be Boston’s chief of police.

Rating:

In November 2025, videos appeared on social media sites including Instagram, TikTok and Threads claiming that a white woman had called the police on her Black neighbor, who turned out to be the Boston chief of police. Some videos sharing the claim appeared to be from a TV news broadcast, with an off-camera reporter narrating events seen on screen. Snopes readers wrote in asking us to verify details about the story.

The video and its accompanying story were fake. Snopes identified signs in the footage, narration and script that were hallmarks of content generated with artificial intelligence tools.

AI tools often struggle to accurately display perspective, as seen at one point in the purported security footage when one of the man’s ears disappears into his head. In addition, the hallway rug bleeds into the slightly opened door throughout the course of the footage.

The video’s off-screen narrator also had unnatural pauses and strange inflections. As an example, the narrator claimed the police chief “had moved into Apartment 412 days earlier” when the confrontation occurred. A human might say “apartment 412” as “apartment four-twelve,” the subconscious format many English speakers use when reading building and apartment numbers. The narrator, however, read the phrase as “apartment four hundred twelve days earlier,” with an intonation suggesting the man had been a resident for more than a year.

Additionally, the script language contained words AI tools often use when asked to write narratives. The police chief in the story “replied calmly” to the woman’s accusation. Journalists are taught to almost exclusively use the word “said” when quoting someone and tend to avoid adverbs in order to maintain impartiality.

Although one version of the video appeared to be from a news broadcast, no reputable outlet had published a story detailing the incident. 

To top it all off, the story contained blatant factual errors. While the videos claimed that Boston’s police chief was a man named Marcus Thompson, the chief of Boston’s police department at the time the video circulated was Michael Cox. The videos claimed the supposed confrontation happened in the “Glendale Arms” apartment complex. Searching for that term revealed exactly one apartment building with that name — located more than 300 miles away in Philadelphia.

For further reading, we’ve also debunked AI-generated videos that claimed to show a sanitation worker rescuing a baby and a Russian man in a boat saving a bear cub.