FACT CHECK: Does This Video Show Donald Trump Pretending To Be An Anonymous ‘Nevada Poll Worker’?

Varun Hukeri | General Assignment & Analysis Reporter

A video shared on Instagram purportedly shows President Donald Trump posing as an anonymous “Nevada poll worker” during an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

 

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Verdict: False

The altered video combines video from Ingraham’s interview with audio from a White House briefing. It appears to have originated as a joke from an entertainer who makes satirical videos.

Fact Check:

Ingraham conducted an interview with an anonymous person during a Nov. 10 broadcast of her Fox News show “The Ingraham Angle.” The person, whose identity was masked by a silhouette and distorted audio, claimed to be a Nevada poll worker that allegedly witnessed “rampant voter fraud” occurring during the election.

Social media users have been sharing an excerpt of the interview where the anonymous person’s voice seems to resemble that of Trump, with this particular Instagram post saying, “This is definitely Trump.”

“I’m not going to say which party does it but thousands of votes are gathered, and they come in, and then they’re dumped in a location, and then all of a sudden you lose elections that you think you’re going to win,” the voice says in the clip. (RELATED: Viral Image Claims Michigan ‘Magically Found’ Over 130,000 Votes Cast For Joe Biden)

The altered video was created by Nick Lutsko, who is a musician and entertainer according to his Twitter profile. His Facebook page includes media content such as songs and satirical videos. Lutsko first shared the altered video on Twitter after Ingraham’s Nov. 10 show with the caption, “This is definitely Trump.” The tweet has garnered more than 31,000 retweets and 135,000 likes.

The audio track used in the video appears to come from a White House press briefing from April 8. Trump made the remarks during that April press briefing, the White House transcript confirms, and cameras can be heard taking photographs in the background.

The altered video was widely promoted on social media but some users did not appear to perceive its satirical nature. Jared Holt, a researcher at the Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab, said in a tweet that the video was intended to be comedic: “Nick is a very funny comedian and any self-serious person who shared this as if [it] was real should probably be on your unfollow list.”

Unaltered excerpts of the interview have also been shared by social media users and the full interview can be viewed on Fox News’ website.

Varun Hukeri

General Assignment & Analysis Reporter
Follow Varun on Twitter

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