Claim:
An image posted online in mid-December 2025 authentically showed U.S. President Donald Trump using a walker.
Rating:
In mid-December 2025, an image (archived) circulated online purportedly showing U.S. President Donald Trump using a walker as a mobility aid.
Keith Edwards, a Democratic political strategist, posted the picture on X, writing: “BREAKING: an image has leaked showing Trump using a walker moments after he signed an executive order banning states from regulating AI”
Edwards previously led communications for The Lincoln Project, a group of former Republicans who oppose the president.
The image circulated mostly on X (archived), but also appeared on Facebook (archived), Threads (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Likewise, numerous Snopes readers contacted us to ask whether it was genuine.
In short, Snopes found no evidence that the image of Trump using a walker as a mobility aid was authentic. It was created using artificial intelligence software; therefore, we have rated it as fake.
Social media users posted exchanges (archived, archived) with Google’s AI assistant Gemini that appeared to state that the picture contained SynthID, a digital watermark Google developed that embeds directly into the pixels of an image, making it imperceptible to the human eye but detectable by Google’s tools.
Gemini confirmed it found SynthID in the image of Trump and the walker when Snopes repeated this process. Its message read: “Based on the detection, it appears that most or all of this image was edited or generated with Google AI.”
(Google Gemini)
Another popular fake image (archived) circulating online, which showed Trump using a gold walker, included Gemini’s watermark in the bottom-right corner.
Snopes reached out to Edwards, who appeared to first share the image, and the White House for comment. We await replies to our queries.
Sightengine and Hive Moderation, two other online AI-detectors, both found the picture was highly likely to be AI-generated.
(Sightengine/Hive Moderation/Snopes Illustration)
Searching for “walker OR mobility OR aid, ‘Donald Trump,'” uncovered no examples (archived) of reputable news media outlets reporting on the image as authentic in the past week (Edwards used the word “breaking,” suggesting the fake photo was new). In fact, numerous news media outlets also debunked the picture.
The claim circulated as Trump signed an executive order to create a “minimally burdensome national standard” to regulate AI companies in the U.S. The executive order said letting states individually legislate on AI, as was previously the case, created “a patchwork of 50 different regulatory regimes that makes compliance more challenging, particularly for start-ups.”
Some social media users appeared to interpret Edwards’ post as a joke (archived, archived); however, at the time of this writing, he had not replied to a question from Snopes about whether he intended the post as satire.
For further reading, Snopes previously investigated a picture purportedly showing the president sitting next to his daughter Ivanka Trump with his tongue out and a video of him falling asleep during a White House Cabinet meeting.
Sources
“AI Image Detector. Detect AI-Generated Media at Scale.” Sightengine, https://sightengine.com/detect-ai-generated-images. Accessed 12 Dec. 2025.
Arrington, Jodey C. . H.R.1 – An Act to Provide for Reconciliation Pursuant to Title II of H. Con. Res. 14. H.R.1, 4 July 2025, https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1/text/eh#:~:text=(c)%20Moratorium.%2D%2D%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20(1,into%20interstate%20commerce.
Hive Moderation. https://hivemoderation.com/ai-generated-content-detection. Accessed 12 Dec. 2025.
“Identifying AI-Generated Images with SynthID.” Google DeepMind, Apr. 2022, https://deepmind.google/blog/identifying-ai-generated-images-with-synthid/.
‘Is Photo of Donald Trump Using a Walker Real? What to Know’. Newsweek, 12 Dec. 2025, https://www.newsweek.com/is-photo-of-donald-trump-using-a-walker-real-what-to-know-11199920.
‘Keith Edwards’. LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-edwards-46815827/.
No, Donald Trump Is Not Using a Walker – Here’s the Truth behind That Viral Photo | Indy100. https://www.indy100.com/politics/trump/donald-trump-walker-health-ai. Accessed 12 Dec. 2025.
“S.Amdt.2814 to S.Amdt.2360.” Congress.Gov, 1 July 2025, https://www.congress.gov/amendment/119th-congress/senate-amendment/2814.
Shalal, Andrea, et al. “Trump Threatens Funding for States over AI Regulations.” Reuters, 12 Dec. 2025, https://archive.ph/CSfL0#selection-1403.0-1423.122:~:text=Major%20AI%20players,regulate%20the%20industry.
‘The Lincoln Project’. The Lincoln Project, https://lincolnproject.us/. Accessed 12 Dec. 2025.
