A video shows a Fox News broadcast of Donald Trump saying: “The amount of stupidity it would take to do that. I don’t even possess that on my worst day” about people serving in the military.
This is not real. The audio is of an impersonator speaking, and Fox News confirmed this has never been aired on the channel.
A video circulating online appears to show a televised phone call in which former US president and Republican nominee Donald Trump seemingly insults soldiers on Fox News. But this is not a real broadcast and features an impersonator’s voice.
The footage shows a TV screen that appears to show a live call with Mr Trump broadcast on the Fox News channel. Alongside a photo of him, text says: “On the phone President Donald Trump” and he supposedly says: “The amount of stupidity it would take to do that. I don’t even possess that on my worst day. Excuse me I wouldn’t be in battle because I’m not some dumbf**k redneck who gets called into war and volunteers for stupid service and conflicts.”
It has been shared with captions including: “He talks about the amount of stupidity Americans have joining the military while on a hot mike [sic] during a commercial break”.
However, this video does not show a genuine televised phone call with Mr Trump. A Fox News spokesperson told Full Fact that the clip “has never aired on [the] FOX News Channel.”
The clip was seemingly first shared by an account that says in its bio: “If you have any legal concerns about our parody content please let us know”. That post has been re-shared almost 9,000 times including by the comedian J L Cauvin who is known for his impressions of Donald Trump.
Mr Cauvin responded to comments on his post sharing the video confirming the audio is his voice. He told us that the audio clip comes from a 2020 episode of his comedy podcast ‘Make Podcasts Great Again’ where he does an impression of the former president. Full Fact has confirmed the clip featured in the episode using our AI tools.
We’ve recently written about other false claims concerning Mr Trump, including those supporting conspiracy theories that an attempted assassination in July was staged.
For more on US politics in the run up to the US presidential election in November, you can find our roundup of online misinformation concerning the presidential nominees, and verdicts on a selection of claims from their first live TV debate.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because the video features the audio of a Donald Trump impersonator and Fox News confirmed the clip has never aired on the channel.
Full Fact fights for good, reliable information in the media, online, and in politics.
Bad information ruins lives. It promotes hate, damages people’s health, and hurts democracy. You deserve better.