Trump post snubbing Dodgers, Blue Jays is fake
- Published on October 28, 2025 at 22:18
- 2 min read
- By Gwen Roley, AFP Canada
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Donald Trump's strained relationships with leaders in Ontario and California prompted many social media users to claim the US president said the Major League Baseball (MLB) World Series was "rigged" and that he would refuse to host either the Toronto Blue Jays or the Los Angeles Dodgers at the White House. But the supposed Truth Social post is fabricated; there is no record of Trump making any such announcement on social media or in any public statement.
"NO MATTER WHO WINS I WILL REFUSE TO INVITE EITHER BASEBALL TEAM TO MY BALL ROOM AS THEY ARE BOTH RUN BY HIGHLY INEPT OFFICIALS FROM CALIFORNIA AND ONTARIO CANADA," reads the alleged capture of a Truth Social post from Trump.
The message goes on to say the baseball championship is "RIGGED, PROBABLY BY THE DEMS & THE MAFIA."
Supposed screenshots sharing the post rocketed across platforms, including Facebook, Threads and X.
"He knows they would both turn him down," says one October 26, 2025 Instagram post.
Popular fiction author and regular Trump critic Stephen King also appeared to reference the alleged Trump statement in his own post on X.
The Blue Jays' appearance in the World Series has stirred national pride in Canada as the country's only MLB team competes for the crown of "America's pastime" amidst trade tensions between the North American neighbors.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has emerged as one of Trump's most vocal critics, exchanged friendly bets on the series -- while jabbing at the Republican president's tariffs -- in a video shared on X (archived here and here).
Strains on the US-Canada relationship tightened after Trump ended trade talks October 24 over what he claimed was a deceptive ad from Ford's government criticizing his tariff policies. Trump denounced the ad, which aired during multiple Blue Jays games, to media and on Truth Social (archived here, here and here).
There is no evidence, however, that the president took to his social media platform to preemtively disinvite both World Series competitors from the White House.
The alleged statement does not appear in live or archived versions of his Truth Social profile.
AFP has regularly debunked fake Truth Social posts impersonating the president.
Searches in Factba.se, an interactive database tracking the president's remarks, also yielded no results related to "Blue Jays."
On the contrary, Trump did release an October 25 statement sending "best wishes" to the World Series competitors (archived here).
Despite Trump's rocky relationship with Newsom, he previously received the Los Angeles Dodgers at the White House to recognize their 2024 World Series title.
Asked whether the supposed announcement was fake, the White House directed AFP to a Community Note, attached to one of the X posts, that credits the screenshot to a meme account (archived here). AFP could not independently confirm the account as the original source of the fake.
The note also references a previous AFP fact-check debunking another fabricated Trump statement about Toronto's baseball team.
Misinformation triggered by US-Canada tensions has crept into online conversations on baseball as a result of the Blue Jays' success in the postseason.
Interest in the championship was also weaponized by a network of misinformation-laden accounts run from Southeast Asia, which an AFP investigation found were churning out AI-generated content on North American sports.
Read more of AFP's reporting on misinformation in Canada here.
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