Fact Check: Is photo showing Putin holding his nose while riding with Trump in The Beast real?

WASHINGTON, DC: A photo has been circulating on social media, claiming to show Russian President Vladimir Putin holding his nose while sitting next to Donald Trump in the US presidential state car, aka “The Beast."

Claim: Putin holds his nose while riding with Trump in The Beast

Trump and Putin met in Alaska on August 15 to discuss ending the Ukraine war, more than three years after Russia launched its invasion in 2022. However, Trump walked away from the high-profile sit-down without the ceasefire deal he had been hoping for.

Still, the alleged nose-holding snap went viral and stole the spotlight. One X user posted the picture with the caption, “Putin found out the hard way.” 

The dig was a not-so-subtle nod to a years-old rumor that Trump carried a distinctive personal scent.

Fact Check: False, no evidence to back the viral claim

The supposed Putin photo didn’t just linger on X; it drifted over to Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, and TikTok. Curious readers flocked to Snopes, hoping the fact-checking site could sniff out the truth.

However, the verdict was clear: the photo was doctored.

Snopes editors reviewed video footage from The Associated Press, NBC News, and Zvezda, a Russian state-run broadcaster under the Ministry of Defense.

The shadows and reflections on the car’s exterior matched perfectly across the footage. The only problem? In those exact moments, Putin wasn’t pinching his nose at all. Instead, he was smiling and looking out toward the press. 

Allegations about Trump’s smell

It’s worth noting that some of Donald Trump’s most fervent critics have, for years, claimed he smells funny.

Snopes has even tracked the rumor, tracing one early version back to a political satirist. From there, Republicans, journalists, and comedians piled on with their own stories about Trump’s alleged funk.

Last year, former GOP Rep Adam Kinzinger told Jimmy Kimmel that Trump’s odor was a revolting cocktail of “armpits, ketchup, makeup and a little butt.”

Trump hating comedian Kathy Griffin chimed in too, claiming in 2023 that the president “does smell really bad,” citing her Celebrity 'Apprentice' encounters with him going back to 2010.

Then there's Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s one-time press secretary turned arch nemesis, who told The Guardian in 2020: “I’m not going to make the equivocations that these other people are making: ‘Well, it’s Republican, it’s judges, it’s policies.’ No, the guy stinks and he’s a racist and he’s an American nativist.”

But Scaramucci, hailing from Long Island, New York, probably used “stinks” more as a figure of speech, suggesting Trump has a bad attitude or doesn’t come across well. It’s like saying, “He’s a mess.”

Other unverified claims about Trump's odor

For the record, Snopes has not independently verified any of these odor claims.

The site has even debunked whispers that the Oval Office had to be fumigated after Trump left in 2021, and it poked holes in courtroom gossip that he passed gas during his April 2024 hush-money trial in New York.

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online