No, Trump did not say this viral quote about buying cereal in pounds

Ketchup, bread and cookies served as backdrop props at a recent press conference by former President Donald Trump. But did he make this statement about cereal prices? A viral social Threads post claims he did.

The Aug.17 post, which criticized Trump for being out-of-touch with food prices, uses a screenshot from an X post that claimed he said: "You used to be able to get cereal for 20, 30 bucks a pound. Now it's at least a hundred dollars a pound, probably. They debit it straight from your account when you show them your grocery ID." 

That screenshot shows Trump speaking at an Aug. 15 press conference at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. We saw similar claims on X.

The Threads post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads, and Instagram.)

But a review of the press conference’s transcripts shows that Trump did not say these words. Early in his remarks, he criticized the Biden-Harris administration for rising grocery prices but not with the quote the viral posts attribute to him.

"Grocery prices have skyrocketed: cereals are up 26%, bread is up 24%, butter is up 37%, baby formula is up 30%, flour is up 38% and eggs are up 46%," he said. "And many items are up at much higher rates than that."

He also responded to a reporter’s question about his message to families "going into debt just to pay for groceries." He answered: "My message to them would be very simple: Vote for Trump and we are going to fix the problem."

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stated on August 21, 2018 in in a blog post

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Trump has previously talked about people using an ID for grocery purchases, but he said that in a very different context. In 2018, Trump said he was in favor of requiring voter ID cards because "if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID."

Fact-checkers roundly debunked that grocery ID claim. Most purchases in retail stores don’t require IDs, except in specific conditions such as the purchase of alcohol, tobacco or while shopping in stores such as Costco that require memberships.

We rate the claim that Trump said this viral quote about buying cereal in pounds False.