Was Donald Trump's Face on Bud Light Truck at GOP Fundraiser? What We Know

A photo allegedly showing an image of Donald Trump on a Bud Light truck has drawn attention on social media, amid the beer company's continued woes.

Since the start of April, Bud Light has been subjected to a relentless backlash for a brief branded partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. In a video posted to Instagram on April 1, Mulvaney said the beer brand had sent her a can with her face on it to commemorate her 365 days of living as a woman.

Mulvaney's partnership with Bud Light drew condemnation and boycott calls from several conservative figures, including Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican. Musicians Kid Rock, Travis Tritt, and John Rich were among those who expressed aversion to the beer brand after the collaboration.

On Sunday, a selfie of Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, posing alongside Donald Trump Jr. made some Twitter users question whether the conservative rejection of Bud Light had come to a quiet end.

The image showed the conservatives smiling as they sat together at a table at the $75-per-ticket Freedom Fest, a fundraising event hosted by the Pueblo County Republican Party on July 8 at Colorado State Fairgrounds.

One eagle-eyed Twitter user zoomed in on the background of the snapshot, showing what appeared to be a Bud Light truck with an image of a person—that they believed to be Donald Trump—next to the distinctive blue-and-white logo.

"Is that Trump on a Bud Light Truck?" the Twitter user asked. The zoomed-in version of the photo was viewed more than 12,500 times within hours of being uploaded.

Several Twitter users agreed with the poster's suggestion that it showed Donald Trump on a Bud Light truck.

Another Twitter user pointed out the Bud Light truck but posted it on the social media platform with no suggestion that the person next to the logo was the former president.

However, a clearer photo of the truck in question was shared by another Twitter user, showing that the image was of President Joe Biden. The Democrat was shown pointing at the Bud Light sign, alongside the caption: "I Did That!" The meme has been around since at least 2021, with detractors often posting stickers of Biden pointing at the high price of gasoline on fuel pumps next to the caption.

While a range of drinks were shown to be offered on the truck at Saturday's Freedom Fest, it is not clear whether Bud Light was among the beverages. Newsweek has contacted the Pueblo County Republican Party via telephone for comment.

In June, it was revealed that Bud Light remains on the beverage menus at Trump accommodations in New York, Chicago, Miami, and Las Vegas, according to the respective restaurants' websites. Meanwhile, the beer brand is not sold at the Trump International Hotel Waikiki in Honolulu and the menu for his winery at the Albemarle Estate in Charlottesville, Virginia, is not available online.

Although the boycott calls have prompted a number of bars and other entertainment venues across the country to discontinue selling Bud Light, the beer remains available at the Trump Tower in Manhattan, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, the Trump National Doral in Miami and the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.

Donald Trump himself addressed the Bud Light controversy in June, writing on Truth Social, his social media platform, that "money does talk—Anheuser-Busch now understands that," but stopped short of calling for boycotts himself.

His eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., however, was among the first to call off the boycotts.

On an April 13 episode of his podcast, Trump Jr. said he wasn't "for destroying an iconic company" over the controversy because Anheuser-Busch "itself doesn't participate in the same leftist nonsense as the other big conglomerates."

He said that the parent company was a well-known donor to the GOP. OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying, shows that Anheuser-Busch donated $514,375 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2022 election cycle.

"Frankly, they don't participate in the same woke garbage that other people in the beer industry actually do, who are significantly worse offenders when I looked into it," Trump Jr. said on his podcast. "But if they do this again, then it's on them! Then, screw them."

Two weeks after Mulvaney posted her Instagram video, Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth said in a statement: "We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer."

Since the calls for a boycott began three months ago, Bud Light has seen a rapid drop-off in domestic sales. Revenue remains consistently below what it was during the same time last year. The company has also lost its crown as America's most popular beer, with Mexican rival Modelo Especial now in the top spot.