FACT CHECK: Is Trump Planning To Rename Washington, DC To The ‘District Of America?’

A video shared on TikTok claims President Donald Trump is purportedly planning to rename Washington, D.C. to the “District of America.”

@storyvenus781♬ original sound – Story Venus Nana’s grandkid20

Verdict: False

Snopes debunked the claim on March 22, indicating the video featured audio generated with artificial intelligence (AI) and Trump did not authentically make the purported remark about the name change. An AI expert also denied the audio’s authenticity in an email to Check Your Fact.

Fact Check:

Trump is asking the Colorado State Capitol to remove what he called a “purposely distorted” painting of himself, according to The Hill. In a March 23 TRUTH Social post, Trump said, “no one likes a bad picture of painting of themselves,” the outlet reported.

The TikTok video claims Trump is purportedly planning to rename Washington, D.C. to the “District of America.” The video features audio in which Trump appears to say, “No more Washington, D.C. I hate it. It makes no sense. They call it the District of Columbia. It’s got nothing to do with Colombia. It’s nowhere near Colombia. From now on, it will be Washington, D.A., District of America. No more of this Columbia nonsense.”

A second TikTok video that repeats the claim has received over 200,000 likes as of writing.

The claim is false. Check Your Fact did not find the claim referenced on Trump’s personal or government X accounts, his TRUTH Social account, or his verified social media accounts. Likewise, the claim does not appear on the White House’s website, its verified X account @WhiteHouse, or in Trump’s list of executive orders. (RELATED: Has Trump Ordered The Keystone Pipeline To ‘Transport Only American Oil?’)

In addition, Check Your Fact found no credible news reports to support the claim. If Trump had renamed Washington, D.C. to the “District of America,” multiple media outlets would’ve covered it, yet none have. Actually, the opposite is true.

On March 22, Snopes debunked the claim. According to the outlet, the audio clip in which Trump appeared to make the name change is AI-generated and originally stems from the TikTok account @whmole, which seems to have been deleted.

Furthermore, Dr. Walter Scheirer, an AI expert at the University of Notre Dame, denied the audio’s authenticity in an email to Check Your Fact.

“This post does not appear to be legitimate. First, the account that posted this video is not a professional media outlet. It routinely posts politically partisan material of questionable veracity. Second, the video production is amateurish, with the transcript flipping between the alternate spellings of “Columbia” and “Colombia.” The purported original source account ‘@whmole’ does not exist on the TikTok platform. Third, the audio track sounds mechanical and lacks Trump’s idiosyncratic manner of speaking,” Scheirer said.

Check Your Fact has also contacted the for comment.