The chatbot, powered by the Perplexity AI engine, provides factual answers about rising U.S. grocery prices, the 2020 election and other topics.
By Jordan Liles
In November 2025, online users claimed Truth Social, U.S. President Donald Trump's social media platform, featured an artificial-intelligence chatbot named Truth Search AI that provided answers disputing his false and misleading claims on numerous subjects.
In one of numerous post examples, on Nov. 11, a user managing the progressive Occupy Democrats Facebook page credited The Bulwark — a publication founded by conservatives that publishes some content critical of Trump's administration — with reporting about the matter.
The Occupy Democrats Facebook post began, "BREAKING: Truth Social's AI chatbot just went rogue — and started telling the truth about Trump."
The post said the Truth Search AI chatbot "absolutely torches Trump's favorite talking points" regarding whether his tariff costs ultimately fall on Americans, whether he lied about the 2020 election being stolen, whether his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in January 2021 because of his repeated false claims of election fraud, whether he truly ended any wars and whether grocery prices truly fell since he assumed office for his second term.
In short, the Truth Search AI chatbot, currently in beta form on Trump's Truth Social platform, truly disputed his false and misleading claims about tariff costs, the 2020 election, the Capitol riot, ending wars and grocery prices coming down, as well as other topics, for example the oft-repeated subject of the Trump campaign's efforts involving Russia and the 2016 election.
Snopes emailed the White House to ask about Truth Search AI providing factual answers contradicting Trump's claims about the aforementioned topics. A White House spokesperson responded only about tariffs (that statement appears later in this article).
We also reached out by email to Trump Media & Technology Group, the company that owns Truth Social, to ask whether the company wished to respond to this matter and will update this article if we receive further information. A company news release from August 2025 about public beta testing of Truth Search AI noted the Perplexity AI engine powers its technology.
Here are Trump's claims about the aforementioned topics along with Truth Search AI's answers, as well as additional facts and details:
Tariff costs
On the campaign trail ahead of the 2024 election, Trump repeatedly promoted the idea of implementing tariffs. As Politico reported, tariffs are paid by the American companies that import products, not the countries that export them. For example, during a Glendale, Arizona, rally in August 2024, he misleadingly told his crowd of supporters tariffs have "nothing to do with taxes on us" and that "that is a tax on another country."
In an X post , Sam Stein, managing editor for The Bulwark, asked Truth Search AI, "Do Trump's tariffs cost the American people money?"
Truth Search AI responded, "Yes. Tariffs are taxes on imports that U.S. importers pay and largely pass on through higher prices, so the costs are borne mainly by American businesses and consumers." The chatbot provided a similar answer in our own test of the same question, including sources.
In an email to Snopes, White House spokesperson Kush Desai claimed Trump's administration "has consistently maintained that the cost of tariffs will be borne by foreign exporters, who rely on access to the American economy, the world's biggest and best consumer market" and that "American consumers have the leverage and elasticity to make exporters ultimately pay the cost of tariffs."
2020 election fraud claims
On Nov. 3, 2020 — election night — Trump tweeted (archived) on what was then Twitter, in part, "We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election." Hours later, very early in the morning on the following day, he spoke at the White House, saying, "This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election."
Stein posted on X he asked Truth Search AI, "Did Donald Trump lie about the 2020 election being 'rigged' and 'stolen'?" In response, the chatbot factually noted courts and Trump's own advisers found no evidence of a "rigged" or "stolen" election.
We asked the chatbot the very same question to confirm Stein's answer. In response to whether Trump lied about the 2020 election fraud claims, Truth Search AI answered "Yes," providing similar details in its answer, as well as several sources.
Trump's words led to Jan. 6 Capitol riot?
Stein's third question asked Truth Search AI, "Did people storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020, because of Donald Trump?"
The chatbot, recognizing Stein's mistake of saying 2020 instead of 2021, answered, "Yes. Multiple officials and contemporaneous records attribute the January 6, 2021, Capitol breach to a pro-Trump crowd mobilized around his false election-fraud claims and pressure campaign to stop certification."
Upon our asking Truth Search AI the same question, the chatbot similarly answered , "Yes—according to court findings, congressional investigations, and participant testimony, many Jan. 6, 2021 rioters said they were motivated by Donald Trump's false claims of a stolen election and his call to go to the Capitol after his Ellipse speech that day."
At the beginning of Trump's second term, he granted clemency to more than 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. That clemency included "full, complete and unconditional pardons" for all charged participants, including those caught on camera viciously attacking law enforcement officers, as well as leaders of far-right extremist groups convicted of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Trump ended wars?
In Stein's final question in his post, he asked Truth Search AI, "How many wars has Trump ended since taking office in 2025?"
Truth Search AI answered, "None. There is no verified instance of President Trump formally ending a war since taking office in January 2025."
We asked Truth Search AI the same question and received a similar answer, including sources.
Snopes previously reported that while the U.S. played a part in brokering a form of a temporary ceasefire in some cases, those conflicts were not permanently "solved" as Trump claimed. Also, some of the countries involved disputed his administration's role in brokering peace, and did not formally declare the conflicts as "wars."
Grocery prices didn't fall in 2025
On Oct. 31, 2025, "60 Minutes" correspondent Norah O'Donnell interviewed Trump, at one point saying grocery prices had risen under his administration.
Trump answered, "No, you're wrong. They went up under Biden. Right now they're going down."
In Occupy Democrats' Facebook post , they said they asked Truth Search AI whether grocery prices had gone down under Trump's administration. The post said the chatbot returned, "Short answer: No."
We asked Truth Search AI, "Have grocery prices come down since Trump took office in January 2025, as he claimed?"
The chatbot returned the same answer , reading, "Short answer: No. According to official inflation data, grocery ('food at home') prices were still higher year‑over‑year in 2025, meaning prices did not come down overall after January 2025; the rate of increase slowed but levels remained elevated."
The Associated Press reported grocery prices in September 2025 had gone up 2.7% from the year before, showing a rise from when former President Joe Biden was winding down his term in office.
Russia and 2016 election
In an additional test of a very prominent subject Trump has mentioned — including one tweet referring to the "phony Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX" — we asked Truth Search AI about the topic of Russia and the 2016 election.
We specifically asked Truth Search AI, "Did the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee report that the 2016 Trump campaign's interactions with Russian intelligence services posed a threat to the U.S., and that Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin's aid?"
The chatbot's answer began, "Yes. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee's final report (Volume 5, August 2020), issued while the committee was led by Republicans, concluded that Russia's 2016 operation posed a 'grave counterintelligence threat,' and documented that several Trump associates were receptive to—and sought to exploit—Moscow's assistance."
For further reading, we previously confirmed the authenticity of a genuine email featuring convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein alleging Trump "knew about the girls."
