Image of MAGA clearance sale at Walmart is AI fake
- Published on November 21, 2025 at 22:52
- 2 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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An image circulating across social media purports to show a Walmart store offloading Donald Trump-branded merchandise for 99 cents as part of a massive "Trump merch must go" clearance sale. But the picture was generated by artificial intelligence, as is evidenced by the visible watermark for Google's Gemini tool in the lower-right corner.
"Meanwhile…at Walmart.." says a November 19, 2025 post on X.
The image appears to show "Make America Great Again" hats, "Trump 2024" T-shirts and other gear affiliated with the US president piled up in boxes and on a discount table at an undisclosed Walmart location. Large cardboard signs price the apparel at 99 cents and say: "Trump merch must go!"
Similar posts spread across platforms such as Facebook, Threads and Bluesky ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday and annual shopping mega-sales that follow.
The posts come as Trump has repeatedly touted the cost of Walmart's curated Thanksgiving dinner package as proof of lower consumer prices -- though US fact-checking organizations reported that the price decline is in part because the basket contains fewer options than the American retail giant's 2024 promotion. They also come as Trump battles some of the lowest approval ratings of his term.
But the picture claiming to show Walmart marking down Trump-themed merchandise is an AI-generated fake.
A diamond-shaped watermark in the lower-right corner of the frame indicates that the image was created using Gemini, Google's AI tool.
A company blog post dated November 20 said the so-called "Gemini sparkle" appears as a visible watermark on all "images generated by free and Google AI Pro tier users" (archived here). When AFP generated its own image using Gemini as a test, the same watermark populated in the lower-right corner.
While AFP has reported that AI chatbots often fail to verify fabricated images, Google says on its website that content created using Gemini also generates a separate, invisible watermark -- which it calls SynthID -- that is meant to be detectable by Gemini (archived here and here). AFP inputted the Walmart image into Gemini twice on November 21. Both times, the app said its analysis detected a SynthID.
The image also carries several visual inconsistencies typical of AI-generated content.
For example, the merchandise includes garbled language, such as the word "TRAGA" and other mispellings on what seem to be MAGA-themed decals.
A book also contains a misspelling of Trump's name as "Trunp" and an incomprehensible second word that resembles "Bible."
Similarly incomprehensible text also appears on some of the "Make America Great Again" hats and "Trump 2024" T-shirts -- which also display a face that does not resemble the president.
Internet keyword searches returned no credible reports documenting such a sale at Walmart locations.
On the retailer's website, Trump-related items sold by third-party sellers -- including various "Make America Great Again" hats -- were listed for higher prices as of November 21 (archived here and here).
AFP reached out to Walmart for comment, but no response was immediately forthcoming.
AFP has previously debunked other misinformation about the retailer here, and about US politics here.
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