Fact check: "Yes, he's an idiot with zero common sense, and no social skills, but he IS my son. I just hope he never gets into politics. He'd be a disaster." - Mary Anne Trump

1. Summary of the results

The quote attributed to Mary Anne Trump is definitively false. Multiple fact-checking organizations, including Politifact, FactCheck.org, Reuters, and Snopes, have found no evidence of this statement ever being made ^[1]. Extensive searches through news archives, books, magazines, and interviews have yielded no matches for the quote ^[2]. The quote appears to exist solely in social media memes and posts, with no credible source or citation ^[3].

2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints

Several important contextual elements are missing from the viral quote:

• Mary Anne Trump passed away in 2000 ^[4], making it impossible for her to have made any recent statements
• The quote has been circulating since at least 2019, well after her death ^[4]
• If such a critical statement had been made by Trump's mother, especially given his high-profile status as a developer and celebrity who considered running for president in the 1990s, it would have been widely reported in the media ^[5]
• A reverse image search reveals that the photo commonly used with this quote has been online since 2016, but the quote itself does not appear in any media sources from that time ^[1]

3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement

The spread of this false quote appears to serve specific political purposes:

• The timing of the quote's circulation (since 2019) suggests it was created to influence public opinion during political events ^[4]
• The Daily Caller News Foundation's investigation suggests that if such a negative statement had been made about Donald Trump before his political career, it would have been extensively reported by media outlets ^[3]
• The quote's persistence despite being thoroughly debunked by multiple international fact-checking organizations suggests an intentional spread of misinformation ^[3]
• The fact that the quote didn't surface during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, when media scrutiny was at its height, further supports its fabricated nature ^[5]