In September 2024, reports circulated online that the current Vice President of the United States had made an unsuccessful joke about an attempt on the life of the American ex-president. It is alleged that Harris' supporters booed her during her speech. We have verified the accuracy of this story.
September 15, 2024 US Secret Service agents prevented The alleged attempt on Donald Trump's life is the second since mid-July. It is reported that a man with a rifle was seen in the bushes near the Trump International Golf Club, where the politician was then staying. The Secret Service opened fire on him, but the suspect fled the scene. He was later detained, the man presented charges (so far only for illegal possession of weapons).
On September 18, a short video went viral on RuNet, allegedly showing US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris commenting on the failed assassination attempt on her political opponent. “[She] made a bad joke yesterday about the assassination attempt on Trump. She said that he “can’t even die with dignity.” This caused a scandal even among her supporters, who booed her right during her speech,” says the publication of the Telegram channel “Russia now"(207,000 views at the time of writing this analysis).
According to the TGStat service, at the time of writing this analysis, at least 130 similar posts appeared on Telegram, with a total of more than 950,000 views. So, the video was published by the channels Voblya (160,000 views), "Sheikh Tamir"(124,000), "From the scene" (61,000), "Communications center"(49,000), Nina Vatt (35,000), etc. In the TV presenter’s channel Oscar Kucera (21,000 views) Harris was called a “complete moron” and asked: “How can this misunderstanding be the president of a nuclear power?!” Similar posts received tens of thousands of views on VKontakte (examples here, here And here).
In the upper left corner of the video being distributed, it is indicated that the recording was made during a live broadcast of an event held in Savannah, Georgia. At the top right is the logo of an Indian English-language TV channel. CNN-News18. At the bottom of the video, the URL for Harris' campaign website is visible, and English subtitles are also shown. In the video, the vice president says:
“So... But we still have work to do, okay? We still have work to do... Because we know Donald Trump can't even die with dignity. He has a completely different plan. [Crowd noise begins and Harris pauses.] Just look at his program "Project 2025""
Most of the publications mentioned at the beginning of this analysis claim that this campaign speech by Harris took place “yesterday,” that is, around September 17th. However, with voters in Savannah, the Democratic candidate met back on the night of August 29 to 30, Moscow time. On numerous pictures from that event, published on the website of the photo agency Getty Images, Harris is photographed in the same clothes.
“Verified” did not find any notes about the vice president’s inappropriate joke in any reputable American publication. At the same time, many media outlets broadcast live coverage of Harris’ election rally in Savannah, for example, a local TV channel Fox 5 Atlanta. In this broadcast, available on YouTube, the viral segment begins at the timestamp 09:12, however, the quote about the ex-president’s impossibility of dying with dignity is missing. Instead, Harris twice pronounces the phrase “Trump has a completely different plan.” Listeners began to buzz precisely at the mention of Project 2025, a 900-page program of action for the next US president, which prepared ultra-conservative experts close to Trump and which the Republican candidate himself has repeatedly disowned. Verified Harris accounts in social networks and her YouTube channel They also broadcast live from the rally, and the viral joke does not appear in these recordings either.
As for CNN-News18, its YouTube channel repeatedly broadcast Harris' speech in Savannah. For example, on the platform you can find such records for August 31, as well as for 3 And 10 September. The US Vice President gave her speech for about 20 minutes, but the CNN-News18 videos last many hours - the fact is that in these versions of the broadcasts the speech was repeated many times. According to transcripts of the videos, the phrase about Trump’s death was not heard during any of these repetitions.
Additionally, when Harris allegedly says, “Trump can't even die with dignity,” the vice president's mouth and lips change position on his face, and his voice sounds lower than the rest of his speech. This indicates that part of the phrase was generated by artificial intelligence and then added to the video using neural networks.
The earliest post with an edited video that “Verified” could find appeared in the Telegram channel mentioned above Nina Vatt September 18 at 13:13 Moscow time. It is noteworthy that in some similar posts the caption to the fake ends with the question: “What kind of mess is going on there?” In Telegram channels "Shaggy Z Nikolaev, Sergey Lebedev"(10,000 views) and "V hand of the Kremlin Z"(4600) it is alleged that some anonymous subscribers sent them the video with such a comment.
So Harris wasn't saying Trump couldn't die with dignity. The video supporting this claim was fabricated using neural networks.
Cover photo: screenshot of @KamalaHarris video (X)
- Associated Press. 5 things to know about the apparent assassination attempt on Trump
- BBC. Project 2025: The right-wing wish list for another Trump presidency
- CNN. What do we know about Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in the apparent second Trump assassination attempt
- Is the recording of the conversation in which Obama said that the US Democratic Party was behind the assassination attempt on Trump true?
- Is it true that the Hungarian intelligence services prevented an assassination attempt on Viktor Orban organized by Ukrainian intelligence?
- Is it true that Kamala Harris’ team used neural networks to create photos and videos of crowds of supporters?
- Has Will Smith said he will vote for Trump?
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