A photograph depicting protesters against former U.S. president Donald Trump holding a blue Trump flag with a swastika, a Confederate flag and a Soviet Union emblem, dates to a demonstration in Pennsylvania in September 2022. The image, however, has been shared alongside false claims that it was taken at a Trump rally in March 2023.
“Sign seen at today’s Trump rally! These are the people who want to rewrite history! #TrumpFacsists (sic),” a tweet with over 1,700 retweets posted on March 25 (here). Examples on Facebook are viewable (here) (here).
Trump held his first election rally in Waco, Texas on March 25, ahead of the 2024 presidential race (here).
This photograph is not recent and does not show Trump supporters, however.
Reuters could not source the exact image, but it matches other footage of the same men at a demonstration on Sept. 1, 2022 in Wilkes-Barre Township in Pennsylvania, where Trump held a rally days later (here). Photographs in Getty Images, credited to Hong Kong-based photo agency SOPA Images (here) (here) show a slightly different angle of the same scene.
The captions identified one of the men as political activist Gene Stilp. Other images available show the flag was later burned in a trash can (here ).
A recording of the demonstration was also uploaded to YouTube by local outlet Times Leader (here). The footage shows the men later held a sign with an image of Trump behind bars and the phrase “Lock him up!”
VERDICT
Miscaptioned. This photograph shows two anti-Trump demonstrators in Pennsylvania in Sept. 2022.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to fact-check social media posts (here).
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