A rumor that circulated online in August 2025 claimed U.S. President Donald Trump, and the Republican Party, planned to federally act to reduce the age of consent for sexual activity, or the minimum age for marriage, to 14 — matters historically controlled at the state level. Snopes received reader searches asking if this rumor was true.

Users’ posts alleged Trump and Republicans pursued this matter to shield the president from facing charges related to his activities with deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, specifically regarding unproven allegations that undisclosed government files regarding Epstein’s past not only mention Trump’s name but also say he engaged in sex with underage girls. Trump has previously denied knowledge and involvement in Epstein’s crimes.

In one of the most prominent examples of users sharing the claim, on Aug. 11, content creator Monte Mader (@montemader) posted a three-minute video (archived) to their more than 1.5 million Instagram followers. The clip received over 2.3 million views. Mader also posted the video on Facebook (archived), TikTok (archived) and YouTube (archived), collectively earning nearly 700,000 additional views. Mader, the only person speaking in the clip, made numerous claims, including mentioning Trump’s Aug. 11 press conference announcing his takeover of Washington’s police department.

This partial transcript highlights Mader’s primary assertions, which include alleging state governments in Missouri, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Wyoming drafted legislation to allow 14-year-olds to marry adults:

Donald Trump and Republicans are trying to reduce the age of consent for marriage to 14 years of age. In his press conference this morning, before he federally seized DC, he claimed that there were droves of violent teenagers causing crime, and that any person fourteen fourteen years old or up should be tried as an adult. But they are also changing the laws so that a 14-year-old girl would be eligible for marriage, and it would change how sex crimes are prosecuted.

There are four states — Wyoming, Missouri, New Hampshire, and West Virginia — who have already written child marriage laws to allow for a 14 year old to marry a grown adult, and any age discrepancy that would be charged as a sex crime will no longer be a crime.

…

And how convenient that now that we know that Trump is in the Epstein files, they are trying to legalize the age of the girls we know he slept with because there are victims who have testified about it.

However, searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo located no news media outlets credibly confirming any developments about Trump and Republicans seeking to lower the age of consent for sex or marriage to 14. A review of Trump’s posts on his own Truth Social social media platform found no announcements about this matter, either.

Further, similar searches produced no documentation about governments in the four aforementioned states drafting legislation to allow children as young as 14 years old to marry adults. On the contrary, outlets reported that, in recent months or years, Missouri, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Wyoming either prohibited or tightened restrictions related to marriage for persons under age 18.

Content creator Vitus “V” Spehar, who manages the Under the Desk News organization, also shared videos promoting this claim on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and TikTok (archived), collectively receiving around 4 million views. Other users also shared posts about the claim on Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived), Instagram, Threads (archived), TikTok (archived) and X (archived).

In an email to Snopes, the White House called the rumor “fake.” GOP National Press Secretary Kiersten Pels also said, “This smear is a blatant lie pushed by far-left media propagandists. No state in the U.S. allows 14‑year‑olds to marry adults, and the false claim that Republicans are trying to change that has zero basis in fact.” We further contacted Mader and Spehar via email and Instagram messages to request evidence to back up their claims, and will update this story if we receive more information.

Trump’s Truth Social post about prosecuting teenagers

Mader’s assertion, which claimed Trump said at his press conference he sought to prosecute alleged criminals age 14 and up as adults, referenced Trump’s remarks from a Truth Social post from the previous week. On Aug. 5, Trump posted (archived), in part:

Crime in Washington, D.C., is totally out of control. Local “youths” and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16-years-old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent Citizens, at the same time knowing that they will be almost immediately released. They are not afraid of Law Enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it’s going to happen now! The Law in D.C. must be changed to prosecute these “minors” as adults, and lock them up for a long time, starting at age 14.

PolitiFact reported about some of Trump’s claims regarding “totally out of control” crime in Washington, including the fact he made no mention of a drop in homicides from the year 2023 to 2024 — a year with the lowest number of homicides since 2019, according to crime data hosted on Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department website.

For further reading, a previous fact-check article examined the claim Trump signed a law effective Aug. 1 that makes couples who have been in a relationship for five years automatically legally married. Another story reported Trump truly once called Epstein a “terrific guy,” and added, “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Sources

Boak, Josh, and David Klepper. “Trump Says He’s Placing Washington Police under Federal Control and Activating the National Guard.” The Associated Press, 11 Aug. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/trump-washington-crime-national-guard-homelessness-655bc22834223c7dc93115bbcb2b215c.

Clara Bates. “Missouri Gov. Kehoe Signs Law Banning Child Marriage, after Years of Failed Efforts.” KCUR – Kansas City News and NPR, Missouri Independent, 10 Jul. 2025, https://www.kcur.org/politics-elections-and-government/2025-07-10/missouri-child-marriage-ban-foster-kids-benefits.

Cullen, Margie. “Child Marriage Law Holds in NH as Senate Rejects Creating Exception for Some 17-Year-Olds.” Portsmouth Herald, 17 May 2025, https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/17/no-child-marriage-in-nh-senate-rejects-exception-to-new-law/83666819007/.

“District Crime Data at a Glance.” Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), https://mpdc.dc.gov/dailycrime.

FindLaw Staff. “State-by-State Marriage ‘Age of Consent’ Laws.” FindLaw, 4 Apr. 2016, https://www.findlaw.com/family/marriage/state-by-state-marriage-age-of-consent-laws.html.

Gurman, Sadie, et al. “Justice Department Told Trump in May That His Name Is Among Many in the Epstein Files.” The Wall Street Journal, 23 Jul. 2025, https://www.wsj.com/politics/justice-department-told-trump-name-in-epstein-files-727a8038.

“LIVE: Trump Holds News Conference on Crime in D.C. | NBC News.” YouTube, 11 Aug. 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcS3wkDf4MU.

Lusvardi, Amber. “Behind the Gaetz Scandal, There’s a Bigger Issue: Most States Have Loopholes That Let Men Exploit Teenage Girls.” The Washington Post, 13 Apr. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/13/behind-gaetz-scandal-theres-bigger-issue-most-states-have-loopholes-that-let-men-exploit-teen-girls/.

Megerian, Chris, and Eric Tucker. “Trump Says Epstein ‘stole’ Young Women from Mar-a-Lago Spa, Including Virginia Giuffre.” The Associated Press, 29 Jul. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/jeffrey-epstein-congress-ghislaine-maxwell-justice-department-3ca45e130deb5f2eee8deff36d99734f.

Raby, John. “West Virginia Bans Marriage for Children Age 15 or Younger.” The Associated Press, 29 Mar. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/child-marriage-ban-west-virginia-713a340ee516c6377db7bb52a817d133.

Roll Call FiscalNote. “Roll Call Factba.Se – Press Conference: Donald Trump Announces Military Deployment in Washington – August 11, 2025.” Roll Call Factba.se, 11 Aug. 2025, https://rollcall.com/factbase/trump/transcript/donald-trump-press-conference-law-enforcement-washington-dc-august-11-2025.

“Trump Deflects Questioning on Epstein Files, Revives Old Grievances Instead.” The Associated Press, 22 Jul. 2025, https://apnews.com/live/donald-trump-news-updates-7-22-2025.

Trump, Donald. “Crime in Washington, D.C., Is Totally out of Control.” Truth Social, 5 Aug. 2025, https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114977985620971126.

Uribe, Maria Ramirez. “How Does DC’s Homicide Rate Stack up Worldwide?” PolitiFact, 12 Aug. 2025, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/aug/12/donald-trump/washington-dc-homicide-rate-international/.

“Wyoming Takes Steps to Limit Child Marriage.” Tahirih Justice Center, 28 Feb. 2023, https://www.tahirih.org/news/wyoming-takes-steps-to-limit-child-marriage/.