President Donald Trump shared a post falsely saying former President Joe Biden was “executed in 2020,” and replaced with a robot clone.
The false claims, made by another user on Truth Social and reposted by Trump on May 31, said “clones doubles & robotic engineered soulless mindless entities” have since substituted for the ex-commander-in-chief. Biden was not executed, and he is still alive today.
It isn’t the first time Trump has engaged with conspiracy theories since he returned to office. Here is what to know:
President Joe Biden was not replaced by a robot clone
Biden has also not been cloned, as the original Truth Social post suggested; He was the president from 2021-2025. He dropped his bid for reelection after a disastrous presidential debate prompted growing questions about his mental fitness for office. He was the oldest sitting president.
The president’s comments come after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called for former first lady Jill Biden to speak up about her husband’s alleged mental decline, saying she conspired to keep her husband’s health from the American people.
In May, Biden shared he was diagnosed with prostate cancer that had spread to his bones. The former president has said he’s “optimistic” about a treatment plan for the disease.
“The expectation is we’re going to be able to beat this,” Biden told reporters at an event in his home state of Delaware.
USA TODAY has reached out to the White House for more information about Trump’s repost.
Trump repeatedly touts Joe Biden auto pen conspiracy
Shortly after taking office in January, Trump claimed that some of Biden’s final-hour pardons were “void, vacant” because they were signed using an autopen. The Justice Department said in 2005 that autopens alone are permissible for a President’s signature, but Trump’s accusations at the time echoed concerns from the conservative Heritage Foundation. Biden had made some controversial moves to blanket pardon members of this family and other people he suspected would be a target of Trump’s political retribution.
In light of Biden’s health announcement, Trump has expanded the unfounded accusations that the autopen was used without Biden’s approval to other policies.
“I think the autopen is gonna become one of the great scandals of all time,” Trump said at a May 30 Oval Office press conference, as clipped by Fox News. “Who signed these orders and proclamations and all of the different things that he signed that set our country so far back?”
Trump went on to say he “almost never” uses the autopen, but thinks it should be used to sign some letters.
This is not the first time Trump’s administration has interacted with conspiracy theories
Trump has also previously targeted prior presidents with false theories. For years leading up to his first White House term, Trump promoted baseless claims that former President Barack Obama was born outside the United States. He publicly admitted for the first time that Obama was born in America two months before he won the 2016 election. He also continued to insist he won the 2020 election for years. Biden won the 2020 election.
Trump hasn’t shied away from other conspiracy theories in his second administration. Trump tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the Secretary of Health and Human Services; he has been accused of peddling conspiracy theories about vaccines. Trump also selected Kash Patel, who has pushed conspiracy theories about federal employees at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
The president moved to release troves of classified documents about the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, the fodder for many conspiracy theories.
Trump claimed White South African farmers were the victims of genocide, which Reuters reported is a conspiracy theory, in a White House meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Trump also recently shared a picture of himself on Truth Social with a caption that is a common QAnon slogan.
Contributing: Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY
Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: No, Biden wasn’t replaced by a clone. What to know about latest Trump-shared conspiracy theory
Reporting by Kinsey Crowley and Savannah Kuchar, USA TODAY NETWORK / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
