Investigating an alleged image of JD Vance arguing with his wife Usha in a restaurant

Claim:

A photo shared online in December 2025 purportedly shows US Vice President JD Vance arguing with his wife Usha Vance at a restaurant.

Rating:

In December 2025, a photo circulated on social media showing US Vice President JD Vance arguing with his wife Usha Vance at a restaurant.

The image appears to show JD Vance wearing a white t-shirt and a stern expression as Usha sits next to Vance. A Facebook user who shared it (archived) wrote:

Things are not so good in Republicanistan it seems. Usha is liberal. has always been. Apparently they were and [sic] An argument big enough to quiet the restaurant. Why is he wearing a t-shirt?

The photo circulated on Facebook and elsewhere on X (archives here and here). In short, it was fake.

After Snopes initially published its story, YouTuber Keith Edwards reached out to confirm that the image was a thumbnail created for the October 2025 video, describing it as “fake”. Edwards told us that he used artificial intelligence platform ChatGPT to create the image.

The thumbnail matched the image circulated on social media. In both, the man wore the same facial expression and the woman held the same position. A reverse image search did not lead us to any previous version of the fake image.

JD Vance himself appeared to support the conclusion that the image was fake in a December 9 X post (archived), responding to a user who shared the image with a comment that seemed to poke fun at the rumor: “I always wear an undershirt when I go out in public to fight with my wife.”

We also ran the image through three AI-detection platforms: Hive, Sightengine and Image Whisperer. Sightengine estimated a 97% chance the image was AI-generated, while Image Whisperer concluded with “high confidence” that it was AI-generated.

Hive, however, flagged the image as “unlikely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content”. It is worth noting that these tools are not always accurate and their results should be interpreted with caution.

Before Edwards was confirmed, on the team Get real securitywho specializes in authenticating digital media, also performed image analysis for Snopes.

Farid onlyCo-founder of GetReal and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told us that the low quality of the image made forensic analysis difficult. However, the team found “biometric anomalies” that suggest the image “could be AI-generated or just look like someone else’s photo. [JD] Vance.”

“In particular, the facial features in the image do not match contemporary images of Vance,” Farid added. Contemporary images are photographs taken at the same time that are used to verify the authenticity of another image.

Matthew Stam, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Drexel University, told Snopes that he and his doctoral student analyzed the image to determine if it was AI-generated, using a special forensics tool that detects subtle “fingerprints” left by generative AI. Stamm said the tool “determined with about 95% confidence that it was unable to detect traces left by generative AI.”

However, he cautioned that this does not prove that the image is real and cannot definitively rule out AI generation. Factors such as its size, low resolution and repeated sharing on social media made analysis difficult, changed”The quality of the forensic traces that we analyze, how smudged fingerprints can be at a crime scene,” explained Stam.

In October 2025, amid rumors of a rift in Vance’s marriage, the fabricated photo went viral online. A photo of Usha Vance without her wedding ring fueled further speculation the following month.

However, A spokesperson told USA Today In a statement on November 21, Usha Vance said she is a “mother of three young children, who cooks a lot, takes a lot of baths, and sometimes forgets her ring.” Other publicly available Getty images Since November, Usha Vance has been seen wearing her wedding ring.

Ma a December 4 interview with NBC NewsJD Vance said the couple’s marriage is “as strong as it’s ever been.”

Sources:

X (formerly Twitter)9 Dec. 2025, x.com/JDVance/status/1998459532977099256. Accessed 10 December 2025.

“Hani Farid | UC Berkeley School of Information.” www.ischool.berkeley.eduwww.ischool.berkeley.edu/people/hany-farid. Accessed 10 December 2025.

“Matthew Stamm – Drexel University College of Engineering.” Drexel University College of Engineeringdrexel.edu/engineering/about/faculty-staff/S/stamm-matthew/. Accessed 10 December 2025.

Pericook, Taija. “Authentic photos of Usha Vance without her wedding ring?” SnopesSnopes.com, 21 Nov. 2025, www.snopes.com/fact-check/usha-vance-without-wedding-ring/. Accessed 10 December 2025.

Stahl, J. “Usha Vance, Lost Wedding Ring, First Owned.” USA Today2025, www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/21/usha-vance-melania-trump-no-wedding-ring/87399269007/. Accessed 10 December 2025.

Gomez, Henry J. JD Vance says his marriage to Usha is “as strong as ever”. NBC News5 Dec. 2025, www.nbcnews.com/politics/jd-vance/jd-vance-marriage-usha-strong-rcna247419. Accessed 10 December 2025.

Updates:

December 10, 2025: This story was updated to include a comment from Drexel University associate professor Matthew Stam.

December 10, 2025: This story was updated to include confirmation from a YouTuber that he created the image as a thumbnail for an October 2025 video. He called it fake. As such, we have added a rating to this story.