No, Pope Francis was not filmed swatting away Donald Trump’s hand

A video which appears to show Pope Francis swatting away the hand of US President Donald Trump is re-circulating on social media.

But this didn’t actually happen. As other fact checkers have explained before, a real video of the pair meeting in the Vatican in 2017 has been edited to include a clip supposedly showing President Trump’s hand being swatted away, as part of a comedy skit which aired on the US talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live”.

Overlaid text on the video shared on social media says “POPE FRANCIS DIES AT AGE 88” and “REMEMBER WHEN TRUMP DID THIS”, alongside the caption “How can we forget”. 

Although many of the comments point out the video isn’t real, several people seem to think it is, with one person saying “scorned like a child he is”, and another saying “Why would he do that. What was the reason???”

While it is true that Pope Francis died on 21 April 2025 aged 88, the hand swatting incident with President Trump did not happen.

The original footage of President Trump meeting the Pope does not include any close-ups of their hands. 

Instead the inserted clip with the hand swatting is from a comedy skit about the pair’s meeting which aired on “Jimmy Kimmel Live”. The host was making a joke about a moment a few days earlier, when First Lady Melania Trump appeared to be seen swatting away her husband’s hand after they disembarked from a plane in Israel.

Although some claims or videos seem obviously false, we still fact check them, because it may not be clear to everyone that they are untrue, particularly more casual internet users. We’ve written about this in more detail on our blog.

We have fact checked a number of claims about Pope Francis, including that he appointed World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab as ‘universal bishop’. Before sharing content you see online, it’s important to consider whether what you are seeing is genuine and comes from a trusted source. Our toolkit can help with this.