Trump Amplifies Biden Clone Claim
By Sam Howard
What happened: A conspiracy theory that former President Joe Biden was executed in 2020 and replaced by a clone has gone viral on X, boosted by President Donald Trump, who shared the claim on Truth Social over the weekend.
A closer look: The claim that a clone filled in for Biden started at least as early as November 2020, but got a new jolt after Trump reposted it on his social media platform Truth Social.
On May 31, Trump posted a link to a little-noticed Truth Social post that stated: “There is no #JoeBiden - executed in 2020. #Biden clones doubles & robotic engineered soulless mindless entities are what you see. >#Democrats dont know the difference.” Trump did not comment on the post or explain why he was sharing it.
Trump’s post received 15,000 reposts and 38,000 likes in two days and led to a flood of posts on other social media platforms.
The next day, a former top Trump campaign advisor, Jason Miller, posted a 2023 video of Biden appearing to look tired when answering a reporter’s question and added the caption, “Clearly a clone.” The post garnered 257,600 views and 5,000 likes in less than a day.
Websites that NewsGuard has found to frequently publish false claims about U.S. politics, including Liberty Beacon (NewsGuard Trust Score: 12.5/100) and 100PercentFedUp.com (Trust Score: 0/100), also posted articles advancing the claim.
Actually: It is completely baseless to claim that Biden was executed in 2020.
While it is unclear how serious Trump or Miller were in advancing the Biden clone theory, their posts have validated claims by others who appear to believe it.
For example, the 100 Percent Fed Up article was headlined “BOMBSHELL — President Trump Confirms: Joe Biden Dead Since 2020!” and included an editor’s note that stated: “The headline above is real and not an exaggeration. Stick with me, I’ll prove it to you. We don’t resort to hyperbole or Fake News around here because…we don’t have to. The truth is often stranger than fiction, and that’s definitely the category for this report.”
The Trump White House did not respond to an emailed request for comment on Trump’s post. Miller, a principal at political consulting firm SHW Partners, did not address NewsGuard’s questions in a June 2 email exchange, and instead raised questions about NewsGuard’s fairness.