A rumor spread online in April 2026 that a video authentically depicted U.S. President Donald Trump declaring June would no longer be celebrated as LGBTQ+ Pride Month but rather "Confidence Month."
For example, an X user purporting to be White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted (archived) the purported video on April 17, 2026, and asked "Do you support President Trump on this?"
In the video, Trump appeared to say:
It is with great pleasure that I am announcing that Pride Month is canceled. Pride is a sin and we will no longer participate in deliberate moral inversions. Instead, June will be known as Confidence Month. Or maybe just June. Who knows.
The story spread as the Trump administration continued to target transgender Americans through government policy.
Some users seemed to interpret the rumor that Trump was canceling Pride Month and changing it to Confidence Month as true. Snopes readers contacted us to investigate its legitimacy.
(@WHLeavitt on X)
The rumor was fictional. It originated from a social media account that described the video as a deepfake — AI-generated content that makes it seem like someone is doing or saying something they didn't do or say. Because the clip originated from an account that calls its content satirical, we've rated this as originated as satire.
To determine the rumor's origin, we first used search engines such as Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo.
If Trump had really made a statement in which he canceled or replaced Pride Month, journalists with reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters, would have widely reported on it, and those search inquiries would have uncovered such evidence. That was not the case. Instead, most results were other instances of similar claims being debunked.
In June 2025, Leavitt said Trump would not be issuing a proclamation to celebrate Pride Month — which he also did not do during his first term — and added, "I can tell you this president is very proud to be a president for all Americans, regardless of race, religion or creed."
An account named @MaverickDarby that described itself as "mostly satire" first shared the video (archived) suggesting Trump replaced Pride Month with Confidence Month on May 19, 2025, and a watermark featuring the username is featured in the top right corner of the video. A title card at the end of the clip read, "This is a deepfake, but let people dream."
USA Today fact-checked the video at the time and declared it a fake.
A follow-up video (archived) posted on May 29, 2025, by the same user alleged Trump was not only canceling Pride Month but eliminating the "LGBTQ movement" altogether. A title card at the end of the May 29 video read, "This is a deepfake, quite obviously, but let people dream."
The video being shared in April 2026 matched the one from May 2025, but with the creator's watermark cropped out and the deepfake disclaimer obscured.
We reached out to the @MaverickDarby account for their response to the fact some people mistook the satirical story as real news. We will update this story if we receive a response.
The account showed a long history of posting AI-generated content and fictitious stories featuring notable political figures and celebrities. For example, it posted a fake trailer for a movie called "Active Shooter" starring JD Vance as a basketball player and Sydney Sweeney as a cheerleader. The video was labeled as "made with AI."
Snopes has debunked similar pieces of media before. For example, in February 2026, we also alerted readers to a fake story about comments made by a conservative columnist with comparable origins.
Let us note here: Whether you agree with something being described as satire or parody is a matter of opinion. Snopes is in the business of facts. We label these rumors based on creators' description of them. Your call on whether you agree.