Liberals on social media are expressing anger at Snopes after the fact-checking website debunked a claim critical of former President Donald Trump.
The issue unfolded on Sunday after a clip in which Trump appears to admit to “waging an all-out war on American democracy” began spreading across social media.
The remarks, made during a 2024 presidential campaign speech in Iowa, were quickly highlighted by prominent accounts on X such as the White House-run “Biden-Harris HQ” and the anti-Trump organization Meidas Touch.
But it wasn’t long after that Snopes came and corrected the misinterpretation among Trump’s critics.
“Neither the audio recording nor the context of Trump’s remark supports the claim that he said ‘We’ve been waging an all-out war on American democracy,'” Snopes said.
Detailing its investigation, Snopes first pointed to a transcript of Trump’s remarks that night from C-SPAN. The transcript notes that Trump said “in American democracy” as opposed to “on American democracy.
Snopes also notes the context of the entire remark, which is missing in many of the videos posted online.
“For decades, you watched as a corrupt political class in our nation’s capitol looted your money, trampled on your dignity, and pushed their radical agenda into every aspect of your lives. You know it very well. But in 2016, you voted to stand up to those liars, losers, crooks, and creeps, and you elected an outsider as your president. And it was about America first. We want to put our country first. They haven’t done that in a long time, but we did it for four years and that’s why we did so well. That’s why it was one of the great presidencies, they say. Even the opponents sometimes say that he did very well, I have to say, ‘Take it back,’ they scream, his people say ‘Take it back.’ From that day on our opponents, and we had a lot of opponents, but we’ve been waging an all-out war in American democracy. You look at what they’ve been doing, and becoming more and more extreme and repressive. They have just waged an all-out war with each passing day.”
Despite the explanation, liberals on X aren’t convinced. Meidas Touch, who Snopes specifically cited, even called on the outlet to retract its article.
“This is very embarrassing for Snopes — and they should delete it,” the group wrote.
Popular left-wing journalist Aaron Rupar even argued that it didn’t matter what Trump actually said and that Snopes shouldn’t have fact-checked the video to begin with.
“This is an absolutely absurd choice to make in terms of something to fact check,” he wrote. “Regardless of what Trump said in this instance, the fact is he has been waging an all out war on American democracy.”
Snopes replies were also filled with hundreds of comments from those critical of their fact-check.
Even MSNBC host Keith Olbermann chimed in, demanding that the media outlet delete their article.
Not all left-leaning users, however, were jumping on the outrage bandwagon. Many defended Snopes by noting that they were merely doing their job.
“Y’all. Getting mad at snopes for doing their job is bullshit,” one user said. “After listening and reading, they are probably right about this one, and look- why do you need Trump to tell you what he’s doing? You can see it for yourself.”
Lawyer Frank Bednarz similarly joined in to defend Snopes.
“Apparently Snopes is trending because they fact-checked @BidenHQ and liberals are upset about it. Has that ever happened before?” he asked. “Trump has said enough legitimately crazy things you don’t need to angleshoot with misheard words that don’t make sense in context.”
Ironically, Snopes has long been accused by those on the right of having an anti-conservative bias. Now, it appears those on the left are deeming the outlet, at least for now, as untrustworthy as well.
As one user on X put it: “Snopes is right, but Trump has said and done plenty of *other* bad things. You don’t need this one particular mis-heard line, there really is enough material to detest him for!”
