Has Trump fasted every Friday since 2020? Don’t bite on rumor

In March 2026, Facebook users shared a rumor alleging U.S. President Donald Trump had fasted every Friday since 2020. According to the claim, Trump abstained from eating food with no exceptions, both for “America’s healing” and for God. Snopes readers contacted us and searched this website to find out whether the rumor was true.

For example, one reader emailed a story matching a March 7 post (archived) originating from the Garvit Pandey Facebook page. The post, which many other users shared, showed photos of people praying with Trump.

(Garvit Pandey/Facebook)

The post featured a story about Trump’s alleged fasting on Fridays, as well as supposed quotes from both the president and first lady Melania Trump:

🇺🇸 America, while you’re eating lunch this Friday, Donald Trump will be FASTING – and when you understand WHY he’s been doing this every single Friday for the past FIVE YEARS without telling anyone, you’re going to see his heart in a way that changes everything. Since 2020, Trump has followed one STRICT spiritual discipline that almost nobody knows about: Every Friday, he FASTS from sunrise to sunset. No food. No exceptions. Doesn’t matter if he’s exhausted. Doesn’t matter if he has 12-hour meeting days. Doesn’t matter if he’s traveling across time zones. EVERY FRIDAY = fasting. Why would a 79-year-old man who works grueling hours deliberately skip food every single week? Trump’s answer is going to move you: “I’m fasting for AMERICA’S HEALING. For our unity. For our strength. For God to guide this nation back together.” This isn’t about health. This isn’t about weight loss.

This is SPIRITUAL WARFARE – Trump denying himself physical food to ask God for spiritual FOOD for our nation. Melania confirmed this when asked: “People don’t see this side of Donald. He takes spiritual discipline VERY seriously. Every Friday for years now – fasting and praying for America.” Think about what this means: While critics mock Trump, he’s FASTING for them. While enemies curse him, he’s PRAYING for the nation. While the country tears itself apart, Trump denies himself FOOD every week asking God to heal us. For FIVE YEARS. Over 260 Fridays of fasting. Nobody photographing it.

Nobody writing articles praising it. Just Trump, quietly, consistently, sacrificing for a nation that half of it hates him. Here’s the truth that destroys me: Trump fasts every Friday not for himself, but for US – for America’s healing, even when America won’t heal its hatred of HIM. 😭🙏🇺🇸 Drop 🙏 and FAST WITH TRUMP this Friday. Comment: WILL YOU join him fasting for America? Share so Christians see: spiritual warfare through fasting. Follow if prayer + fasting = power. Pray: “Jesus, heal America as Trump fasts for us.” 5 years of Fridays! 🙏😭✝️🇺🇸

In short, this rumor was fictional. The quotes, including quotes in a previous post (archived) on the same Facebook page, were fabricated. The Garvit Pandey Facebook page’s many daily posts displayed signs that users generated the stories with artificial intelligence tools, all in an effort to create inspiring accounts about public figures. The page’s user-submitted reviews featured a handful of people calling out the AI-generated, fictional content. Therefore, we’ve rated this claim false.

Searches for photos of Trump attending dinners on Fridays located several examples, including showing him with food or a finished plate in front of him. Searches for the alleged Donald Trump and Melania Trump quotes found no other sources publishing the made-up remarks, nor did we find statements about Trump regularly abstaining from food for religious reasons. If the story were true, journalists with reputable news outlets such as The Associated Press or Reuters — or at the very least conservative-focused, independent political blogs — would have widely reported on it. That was not the case.

Snopes emailed the White House to ask if they wished to address the rumor. We also contacted the users managing the Garvit Pandey page, which had a “page transparency” tab displaying five page managers residing in India, to inquire about the content on the page. We will update this article if we receive further information.

Examples of Trump eating food on Fridays

Beyond the Friday fasting rumor’s AI origins, we further located three key examples of Trump eating on Fridays in 2025.

On July 18, 2025, Trump delivered remarks during a White House-hosted dinner for Republican U.S. senators. The White House published photos from the Friday event, including a picture (archived) of a nearly finished plate of food right in front of Trump.

(Image courtesy of the White House)

Several Fridays later, on Sept. 5, Trump once again spoke before a dinner at the White House, this time held in his newly paved makeover of the Rose Garden. A White House website gallery showed dozens of photos from the evening, including an image (archived) of a salad for Trump.

(Image courtesy of the White House)

Weeks after that, on Oct. 31 — also a Friday — Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club hosted a Halloween party themed on “The Great Gatsby.” An Instagram user posted a slideshow of photos from the evening. The fifth image in the slideshow featured Trump seated in front of a nearly finished plate of food.

How we know the story was written using AI

The posts alleging Trump has fasted every Friday for years displayed a format and flow similar to the other dozens of daily posts on the Garvit Pandey Facebook page. That format and flow suggested one or more of the India-based users managing the page fed a template-based prompt into an AI tool. In other words, prior to prompting the AI tool to write a story, all one of the managing users needed to do was change the subject’s name — for example, Trump or a different name — as well as other bits of information. Then, they would submit the prompt to produce the tale and publish the finished text on Facebook.

The posts featured emojis — symbols that AI tools often use — and hashtags, as well as around 300 to 450 words each. The final sentences of each post asked users to follow three specific actions, including requesting users “drop” a specific emoji in comments, to comment answering a unique question and to share the post for a special reason.

For example, other posts featured inspiring, fictionalized stories about Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Those posts contained fabricated quotes, numerous emojis and around 300-450 words, as well as requests to “drop” a specific emoji, answer a question in comments and share for a special reason.

All of the aforementioned findings led to our conclusion that the page’s managers generated daily stories with AI, as opposed to thoughtful, carefully considered journalism. The idea that, in this age of AI, a user would sit down and manually write dozens of fictional stories per day to publish on a Facebook page, with each one containing AI-like writing, does not exactly square with reality.

The fictional story about Trump and fasting, as well as the other tales on the Garvit Pandey Facebook page, resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as stories “that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.”

For further reading, we previously reported whether an image truly showed Trump yelling at Hegseth in the Oval Office.

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