Did Donald Trump call British protesters to join a march on the U.K. parliament in October 2024? No, that's not true: A video that purported to have narration by Trump showed signs that it was not authentic, according to several AI detectors. Lead Stories found no credible sources confirming that Trump ever said the words attributed to him.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X, previously known as Twitter, on October 19, 2024. It said:
Rally cry from the Don himself @realDonaldTrump to the patriots of the UK.
Join us next Saturday in OUR capital
Mustering from 11am at Victoria.
Marching onto Parliament Square at 1pm.
Soros and his commie misfits are against us.
Good always beats evil, we will win.
Here is what the post looked like at the time of the writing of this fact check:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Oct 29 13:26:45 2024 UTC)
The shared video purported to capture Trump's remarks addressing British protesters:
The people in the UK, you have been dealt a hand that many would call unfair. Unbelievable, really. Look at what's happening, the decisions being made right now. They're hurting the very fabric of this great nation -- your jobs, your economy, your values, all at risk because of the leadership that's not putting you first. That's right, they're not looking out for you. They talk a big game, but when it comes down to -- all about them, and let me tell you, it's not too lot, too late. You, the people, have the power! Stand up, make your voice heard, and let's take back control! Let's make the UK great again! You deserve leadership that respects your hard work, your history, your future. You deserve that, believe me. The UK is a land of innovation, of pride, of resilience. Don't let anyone take that away from you. The politicians, they've had their chance and they failed. Now it's your time. Demand change, demand respect, demand leaders who care about the people, not the power. The world is watching it. Together, we can write the next great chapter of the UK. Believe me, folks, it's going to be huge.
The post on X that is the focus of this fact check implied that Trump, a former president and the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, encouraged people in the United Kingdom -- in the last weeks of the 2024 U.S. presidential race -- to march on the British parliament.
The clip
The video, however, did not actually show Trump saying the words: The first shots of him were out of sync with the audio, and the rest of the clip was a compilation of random generic footage.
The next clue that the recording may not be authentic came from the audio itself. When Trump is purported to say "It's not too lot, too late," he sounds mechanical, and a recognizable audio cut between two sentence fragments can be heard.
The audio did not contain elements typical for human speech such as breathing or a change of tone to emphasize certain words. Those are some of the subtle nuances that give away deepfakes in an era when AI has been becoming more and more proficient at reproducing the voices of famous people, including politicians, The Washington Post reported.
No reports
In mid-October 2024, Trump's campaign attorneys charged (archived here) that the British Labour Party, now in power in the U.K, was interfering in the U.S. election. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer denied the accusation.
There is no evidence that Trump made the public speech attributed to him in the post on X.
A very broad Google search for the word "UK" on Trump's account on his TruthSocial platform, where he frequently communicates with the world, produced zero results (archived here).
The same very broad Google search across Trump's account on X, where he has been tweeting again (archived here) since August 2023, returned posts predating October 2024 (archived here). A narrower Google search, seen here (archived here), for that month's entries for the language from the clip didn't produce a single match.
Had Trump actually said what the post on X attributed to him during the heavily covered 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, the remarks would have been likely transcribed or quoted by credible sources, but Lead Stories found no instances of that. Searches on Google (archived here) and on Google News (archived here) for the precise language from the clip and Trump's last name returned no results.
A search for the phrase "make the UK great again" and Trump's last name on Google News, seen here (archived here), led to old stories about British politicians and a recent Reuters fact check (archived here) on the same clip.
AI detection tools
Hive Moderation, a company that offers AI detection, identified text from the supposed Trump speech as AI generated:
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken on Tue Oct 29 13:46:37 2024 UTC)
Though Hive Moderation did not conclusively rule that the audio was a machine-produced deepfake, the clip scored much higher than an authentic recording would:
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken on Tue Oct 29 14:41:30 2024 UTC)
Four of six models on Deepfake-O-Meter, a nonprofit AI detection tool managed by the University of Buffalo (archived here), ruled that the audio is likely to be a product of generative AI:
(Source: DeepFake-O-Meter screenshot taken on Tue Oct 29 14:05:51 2024 UTC)
True Media, another nonprofit AI detection tool, found "substantial evidence of manipulation" (archived here). The conclusion was based, in part, on an analysis of the audio and its content:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Oct 29 14:14:57 2024 UTC)
Sources of the claim
The post that is the focus of this fact check appeared on the account of the British activist Tommy Robinson seven days ahead of a march he organized (archived here). Robinson's real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who is known for spreading misinformation. On October 28, 2024, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail "after admitting contempt of court by repeating false claims against a Syrian refugee" long before the march, as reported by the BBC (archived here).
Robinson's account was not the original source of the deepfake audio.
One of the earliest examples of the clip found by Lead Stories is from October 10, 2024 (no longer available but archived here), when it was posted on TikTok by an account that published multiple variations of the same claim (no longer available but archived here):
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Oct 29 15:22:58 2024 UTC)
Although the account's bio referenced the 2024 Republican slogan "Trump 2024," it was not an official campaign account. Videos reviewed by Lead Stories before the account's removal from TikTok were not official campaign ads: They lacked the federally mandated (archived here) sign-off language consisting of the candidate's name and verbal or written approval of the message discussed in an ad.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims mentioning Donald Trump can be found here. Stories about claims concerning the 2024 U.S. presidential election are here.
