Claim:
Musician Eric Clapton once called U.S. President Donald Trump “a disgrace to America,” “a cancer on society” and “the most dangerous and corrupt leader ever.”
Rating:
In December 2025, social media users attributed a quote to English guitarist and songwriter Eric Clapton, claiming he criticized U.S. President Donald Trump by calling him “a disgrace to America” and “a cancer on society.”
For example, one X user shared a meme (archived) featuring a photo of the musician and the alleged quote, which in full read:
Donald Trump is a disgrace to America. He’s a liar, a conman, a bully. Everything he does is for personal gain. He spreads hate, he denies science, he tramples on democracy. It frightens the hell out of me what he’s done to the world. He’s a cancer on society. I think he’s the most dangerous and corrupt leader ever.
(X user @maria48308)
The meme spread widely on Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
While many social media users appeared to take the quote at face value, Snopes found no evidence Clapton had criticized Trump in this manner. This led us to conclude that this quote was incorrectly attributed to the musician.
Digging into claim
Searching for the following keywords — “Eric Clapton,” “Donald Trump,” “disgrace to America” and “cancer on society” — on Google, Yahoo, Bing and DuckDuckGo uncovered no reputable news stories suggesting the claim was true (archived, archived, archived, archived), nor did the same search on Google News (archived). If Clapton had made such remarks about the U.S. president, news and entertainment media outlets would have reported on the story.
In 2023, the guitarist helped raise funds for the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who later endorsed Trump and became Trump’s health and human services secretary. Snopes contacted Clapton’s spokesperson and will update this report should we hear back.
The meme and quote had all the hallmarks of a fabrication. The earliest example (archived) Snopes could find came from a Facebook page dedicated to the musician called Tears in the Strings (archived) that featured several false stories about Clapton (archived, archived).
Tears in the Strings’ post included a link in both the caption and comments to an advertisement-filled article (archived) that, though it featured Clapton’s and Trump’s names, did not include the quote in question and focused on a separate false story. That article appeared on a site featuring more fabricated stories with all the characteristics of AI slop. The objective of such sites is to make money from ad revenue on articles featuring fantastical, clickable storylines.
The “Page Transparency” tab for Tears in the Strings stated that it was managed by users in Vietnam and the Philippines. Snopes has previously explained how such AI slop stories often originate from these countries. We contacted the manager of Tears for Strings and will update this article we receive a reply.
For further reading, Snopes previously reported on an AI-generated story claiming Clapton had paid the funeral expenses of victims of the 2025 Texas floods.
