Fact Check

Trump Caught Tweeting at Mar-a-Lago?

An unflattering image purportedly showing President Donald Trump sending a tweet from his Florida estate is a hoax.

Published April 26, 2017

 (Gage Skidmore / Flickr)
Image Via Gage Skidmore / Flickr
Claim:
An image shows a disheveled President Trump texting at Mar-A-Lago.

A meme purporting to show a disheveled President Donald Trump looking at his phone at Mar-a-Lago appeared in April 2017:

Every claim offered by this meme is incorrect, as the man pictured is not actually Donald Trump, this picture was not taken at Mar-a-Lago, and the device the man is holding does not appear capable of tweeting.

The original image, which showed an unflattering view of a man (not Donald Trump) sitting on a bench, has been circulating online since at least 2008. His face and hair were later altered in the image, in order to make it appear as though the pictured man was Trump himself. Here's a comparison between the original image (left) and the doctored image (right):

This photograph was also not taken at Mar-A-Lago. Although we have not pinpointed the exact location of this image, it was most likely taken during a music festival in Sweden, as the man pictured appears to be Swedish musician Gula Gubben. An eerily similar picture of Guben at the This Is Hultsfred Festival in 2013 can be seen here.  

Lastly, the device that the man is holding in this photograph does not appear to be a phone capable of sending a tweet. Even if he were, Trump did not join Twitter until 2009, a year after the original image first appeared.

Sources

Keegan, Jon.   "Clinton vs. Trump: How They Used Twitter."     Wall Street Journal.   19 July 2016.

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.