JD Vance’s Warning About Trump ‘Death Bed’ Misinformation Was… Misinformation
USA Today
Vice President JD Vance just pulled off a very 2025 trick: warning about fake news by making some up.
Following a few days of bizarre and baseless rumors — primarily from far left social media trolls and influencers — about President Donald Trump’s health, Vance logged onto X and wrote:
“If the media you consumed told you that Donald Trump was on his death bed because he didn’t do a press conference for 3 days, imagine what else they’re lying to you about.”
It’s a neat line. Punchy. Timely. But also false. No credible outlet — not The New York Times, not CNN, not Fox, not even the most fringe clickbait — reported Trump was on his death bed. The story existed only in rumor mills and the viral, self-feeding algorithms of social media, mainly on the cesspool that X has become since one-time Trump ally Elon Musk killed any moderation in the name of “free speech.”
In fact, these rumors spread like spilled ink on X until mainstream reporters eventually swatted it down with solid reporting. But like all conspiracy theories that persist, it’s virtually impossible to prove that no media outlet reported Trump’s rumored health woes.
And yet Vance cast it as fact. In warning against misinformation, he became a conduit for it. He conjured a lie to illustrate the dangers of lies. Meta-misinformation.
This is the world we live in now. Facts are optional. Narratives are king. A shadow on X can feel like breaking news. Politicians seize the whisper, recast it, and send it back into circulation. Corrections rarely catch up. The phantom becomes a cudgel. The echo becomes the story.
There’s theater here, too. Trump’s allies present themselves as guardians of truth in a hall of mirrors. But often, they manufacture the distortions they claim to fight. Meanwhile, critics of Trump pick at observable gaffes. One side shadows ghosts; the other shadows reality.
David Carr once called the media ecosystem “an argument without end.” Vance’s post is proof. The rumor never existed until he amplified it. A whisper becomes a drumbeat. In the digital age, perception moves faster than fact. And sometimes, even those claiming to defend truth are its most prolific forgers.
Welcome to modern politics. A world where cautionary tales are often cautionary only because someone made them real.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
