A rumor that social media users circulated online in March 2025 alleged an audio file depicted U.S. President Donald Trump pondering renaming the District of Columbia the "District of America." Users shared the claim around two months after he signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
Two of the more prominent shares of the "District of America" rumor occurred on TikTok. One user's video receiving more than 3.8 million views depicted the user listening to the purported audio recording, which played on a hypothetical scenario in which Trump confused the "Columbia" in the "District of Columbia" for the differently-spelled, South American country of Colombia. Trump purportedly said:
No more Washington, D.C. I hate it. It makes no sense. They call it the District of Columbia. It's got nothing to do with Colombia. It's nowhere near Colombia. From now on, it will be Washington, D.A., District of America. No more of this Columbia nonsense.
Another TikTok user's video receiving more than 3.1 million views featured the user saying, in part, "Where are Trump's advisers? Who is sitting back and letting that man say out loud with his whole chest that he wants to rename Washington, D.C., the District of Columbia, to the 'District of America'? Because, in his words, 'Why should it be Columbia?' He thinks the District of Columbia has to do with the country of Colombia. He doesn't even realize that the District of Columbia and the country are spelled differently. Like, this is our president."
However, the recording was not real and there was no evidence of the president wanting to rename Washington the "District of America." A social media user created the audio recording with an artificial intelligence tool. The voice sounded similar to Trump's but featured some slight differences in its tone and manner of speaking.
TikTok user @whmole — a handle meaning "White House mole" — appeared to be the creator of the "District of America" audio. However, a check of the account on March 21 displayed the message "Couldn't find this account," which meant its videos and inbox for direct messaging were no longer accessible. (We reached out to TikTok to ask whether the company removed the @whmole account or whether the user deactivated the page on their own, and a representative said TikTok was looking into the matter.)
Webpage-archiving websites did not host any archived versions of the @whmole account's page. That said, before the account was deactivated, Snopes confirmed it was the source of several videos featuring fake, AI-generated audio clips of Trump — similar to the recording in question.
Also, a separate TikTok video with the audio of Trump supposedly talking about renaming the district to "District of America" displayed a watermark for @whmole, an indication that account was the recording's creator. That video's on-screen caption read, "Trump CAUGHT on a HOT MIC. Getting rid of Washington D.C.??! Wed March 12 2025. Wait til the end...."
We've covered other audio recordings with the @whmole watermark, including clips that supposedly depict Trump comparing his adviser Elon Musk to "Isaac Neutron" rather than English physicist Isaac Newton and advocating for an end to daylight saving time because people "die faster" when the clock moves an hour forward.