Says Donald Trump posted on Truth Social it “should be illegal” and is “election interference” for Barack Obama to criticize him.

Former President Barack Obama recently criticized his successor’s behavior of “bullying” and “putting people down” as he rallied in Pennsylvania for Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee. 

“That is not what real strength is,” Obama said Oct. 10. “It never has been.” 

Trump posted about Obama the following day on Truth Social, but not what appears in an image now spreading on social media. 

“Election interference! Totally unfair that Obama can run his mouth about former presidents like me — should be illegal!” reads what looks like a Truth Social post from Trump. But it was fabricated.

Threads posts sharing the image were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

That post doesn’t appear in Trump’s Truth Social feed, and we found no credible evidence such as news reports or archived posts to show that it ever did. 

On Oct. 11, Trump posted: “Obama admits a total lack of enthusiasm for Kamala, especially with Black Men. I think Obama will be voting for me because he doesn’t like the fact that Kamala is an extremely Low IQ Person!” 

The image of the fabricated post first appeared on X, where a parody account posted it and described it as “satire.” Threads users reshared the post without the satire label.

In a later X post, one user said the account posted satirical content “to demonstrate, by example, that we need to be more responsible in how we evaluate information. Before blindly believing and sharing something, we need to check ourselves and our biases.” 

We rate claims this is an authentic Trump post False.