In the summer 2025, an annual quote attributed to US President Donald Trump, Mary Ann McLeod Trump again made the circles online. The alleged quote states, “Yes, he is an idiot with zero common sense and without social skills, but he is my son. I just hope he never goes into politics. He would be a disaster.”
Many Internet users shared the quote in the form of what looked like a newspaper cut. Examples appear in publications on social media platforms, including Topics (S)archived), Facebook (S)archived) and Blissful (S)archived).
(A thread user @luverd3)
We first looked at the authenticity of this quote in 2019 and found that no evidence Trump’s mother had never made such a statement. Other publications, such as Politifact and Reuters, also checked the quote and found no proof that it was real.
As the digital archives of newspapers, books and magazines grow and change over time – which means that it is always possible for new evidence of historical claims to become accessible – we looked at another look at the quote after he began to circulate again in the months and after the Trump campaign and the event of a victory in the Presidential Election.
In short, just like in 2019, we did not find convincing evidence to support the allegations of quote’s truth at the time of writing.
We have fulfilled the full quote, as well as the distinctive clauses “He is an idiot without common sense” and “I just hope he never goes into politics” on newspapers.com and Gale Onefile, both of which are large databases of periodicals and did not find evidence to support the authenticity of the quote. We also sought the Quote on Google Books and the Internet archive, which also did not return evidence that the quote once appeared with a secure attribution to any legal publication.
Google search for the quote did not find any cases from it before 2019, nearly two decades after the death of Mary Ann McLeod Trump of August 2000. The lack of any evidence of a quote dating the alleged initiator is a common red flag for false or ghostly quotes.
One development of 2019 was the emergence of the alleged newspaper cut showing the quote under a photo of Trump and his mother, who seems to be first distributed (archived) online in June 2020. Examples of cutting that does not include the name of the document (archived) in many (archived) in many (archived) in many (archived) in many (archived) in many (archived) in many (archived) in many (archived)
(X User @Robertcstern)
However, we did not find evidence that the cut was real. Although the alleged excision included a real photo of Trump and his mother, who was prominent in a 2016 New York article, entitled “The mother of Donald Trump immigrants”, we did not find cases of the photo paired with a quote in every real newspaper or magazine.
It is possible that the first source proving the authenticity of the quote will exist somewhere – for example, in an archive of newspapers that has not been digitized until the time of writing – and for this reason we have abstained from issuing a final rating.
Previously, we looked at the claim that Trump’s mother was an undocumented immigrant.
Sources:
Emery, David. “Here’s how to certify viral quotes attached to historical figures.” Snopes, December 5, 2022, https://www.snopes.com//articles/464027/how-to-authenticate-quotes/.
Evan, Dan. “Trump’s mother once called him” idiot “?” Snopes, December 12, 2019, https://www.snopes.com//face-check/trumps-mom-call-him-idiot/.
Fact verification ratings Snopes.com. https://www.snopes.com/face-check-rants/. Access to 31 December 2024
“The wrong statement: Donald Trump’s mother said she would be a politics disaster.” Reuters, April 17, 2020. www.reuters.com, https://www.reuters.com/article/world/false-claim-donald-trumps-mother-sid-held-ea-disaster-in- Politics-Idics-idiSkbn
Casprak, Alex. “Checking the facts: Was Donald Trump’s mother a homeless immigrant?” Snopes, January 30, 2017, https://www.snopes.com//face-check/donald-trumps-mother-immigrant/.
“Mary McLeod Trump Philanthropist, 88.” The New York Times, August 9, 2000, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/09/nyregion/mary-macleod-trump-pilanthropist-88.html.
Pilon, Mary. “The mother of Donald Trump’s immigrants.” The New Yorker, June 24, 2016 www.newyorker.com, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trumps-imigrant-mother.
Putterman, Samantha. “No evidence Trump’s mother called him an idiot.” @politifact, https://www.politifact.com/facechecks/2019/dec/18/facebook-posts/no-evidence-trumps-mother-called-him-idiot-zero-Co/. Access to 31 December 2024