It's fake news that Barron Trump was hospitalized for pneumonia

A post on the website AmericanToday.us falsely claimed Barron Trump was hospitalized for pneumonia.

"Horrible news are coming from the President’s house while President (Donald) Trump on Friday began a 17-day stint at his prized golf club in Bedminster, NJ. Barron Trump has been rushed to hospital with severe pneumonia while on holiday in Bedminster, NJ," the Aug. 6 post said.

Trump’s youngest son is indeed on vacation with his family at their Bedminster resort, but we found no proof of his purported illness.

The post claimed Trump had sent a Snapchat photo to his friends captioned, "Not the sort of bangles I usually choose on holiday."

We traced the image attached to the article to an 841-day old photo on an Instagram search engine called Mulpix. It’s not Barron Trump’s hand.

"He also tweeted his friends, saying that he was currently ‘in a wheelchair, connected up to tubes, in a hospital,’ " the post said.

But we didn’t find any tweets mentioning a wheelchair or a hospital in the various unofficial Barron Trump Twitter pages.

Featured Fact-check

Social Media

stated on October 26, 2024 in social media posts

An old photo shows Kamala Harris in a McDonald’s uniform.

The post also cited a nonexistent Fox News report that he was receiving treatment at an unnamed hospital.

In reality, the post is stealing some real-life events from surrounding a British television show host.

The host of the show Grand Tour, Jeremy Clarkson, was admitted to a Spanish hospital for pneumonia on Aug. 6, the same day as this fake news story was posted.

A spokesperson for the show said in a statement that Clarkson "was admitted to hospital on Friday morning during a family holiday in Spain."

Clarkson posted a photo on Instagram of his arm which he captioned, "Not the sort of bangles I usually choose on holiday."

He also said he was in "in a wheelchair, connected up to tubes, in a hospital" in a tweet.

That’s more than enough to seal the fate of the claim that Barron Trump was rushed to hospital with severe pneumonia. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!