Did Trump post AI photo of 6-fingered Navy sailor?

A rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump posted an image of a U.S. Navy soldier with a six-fingered right hand eating a burger with the caption, “OUR MILITARY EATS THE BEST! Nobody feeds our brave troops better than me,” spread online in August 2026. 

For example, above the purported screenshot of Trump’s Truth Social post, an X user claimed on Aug. 30, 2026 (archived), “The troops are so well fed, they have grown extra fingers!” Although the sixth finger wasn’t visible in the artificial intelligence-generated image, there was also no thumb visible — rather, only five non-thumb fingers.

The story spread as Navy sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier prepared to land after more than 270 days at sea, receiving widespread attention for deteriorating conditions on board — including reportedly running out of food and other essential supplies. 

The alleged post by Trump read in full:

OUR MILITARY EATS THE BEST!

Nobody feeds our brave troops better than me. The food is AMAZING–the best military food EVER! Other countries wish they could feed their soldiers this well.

TOTAL WIN!

(X user @torontobaddy.)

The purported post by Trump appeared on multiple social media platforms, including Instagram, Bluesky, Reddit, Facebook and X, where several posts received hundreds of thousands of views. Some users seemed to interpret the rumor that Trump posted an AI-generated sailor eating a burger as true. Snopes readers also contacted us to investigate its legitimacy.

We dug into the claim, and found no evidence that Trump posted the image of the six-fingered sailor. Rather, the oldest post we found online appeared on an anonymous 4chan account on Aug. 30, 2026, at 12:25 p.m. ET (archived) with the caption, “You could eat like this EVERY DAY if you enlisted.” The image appeared on other social media pages — including satirical X account @torontobaddy — shortly after. 4chan users operate anonymously, and we were unable to reach out to the user for more information.

Although some later posts cut off the purported Trump post’s time stamp, the 4chan post of the image showed it was supposedly published on Aug. 29, 2026, at 6:23 p.m.

We searched an archive of Trump’s Truth Social posts, and found that on Aug. 29, Trump posted at 5:36 p.m. ET and then again at 10:35 p.m. (archived).There is no indication he posted between those two time stamps. We also searched the archive for the words, “Our military eats the best,” and also found no evidence (archived).

In sum, there is no evidence Trump posted an image of a six-fingered general with a caption claiming that the U.S. military “eats the best.” The oldest version of the post appeared on online forum 4chan on Aug. 30, 2026, though the anonymous user did not publicly confirm whether they created the image.

Although this particular post was AI-generated and we found no evidence that Trump posted it, we have reported on numerous AI-generated images Trump has posted. For example, he once posted an AI-generated image of himself flanked by security while walking alongside a shackled extraterrestrial being and in another instance, he posted — then deleted — an AI depiction of himself in the likeness of Jesus Christ.