Does a CNN video show Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau crying in response to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's pledge in November 2024 to slap tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S.? No, that's not true: The video is from 2017 and shows Trudeau becoming emotional over the death of Canadian musician Gord Downie. The 2017 clip has been edited, and a fake CNN banner was pasted at the bottom to make it appear authentic.
The video appeared in a post (archived here) on X on November 26, 2024, under the caption "🇨🇦 Canada's Justin Trudeau has responded to Trump's 25% tariff threat." The text read:
BREAKING: Trump to slap Canada and Mexico with a 25% tariff on all goods entering the US.
The tariffs will remain in place until Canada & Mexico secure their border from iIIegals and Fetanyl shipments entering the US.
The video shows a teary-eyed Trudeau saying:
And we all knew it was coming, but we hoped it wasn't. And ... I thought I was going to make it through this but I'm not. It hurts. And we are ... we are less as a country.
Here's how the post looked on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X.com screenshot taken on Wed Nov 27 15:34:32 2024 UTC)
Trudeau did begin crying while speaking these words, but it wasn't in 2024 and had nothing to do with Trump's threat to impose a 25 percent duty on Canadian goods entering the United States. The original video shows Trudeau choking back tears while eulogizing Gord Downie, frontman of Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, who died of brain cancer on October 17, 2017 (archived here).
Trudeau's full remarks can be viewed in a video on the YouTube channel of Canada's Global News outlet. At the 0:54 mark, he says:
And we are ... we are less as a country without Gord Downie in it. And we all knew it was coming, but we hoped it wasn't. And... [tearing up] I thought I was going to make it through this but I'm not. It hurts.
The video on X edits the quote, putting the first sentence at the end. It also cuts out before Trudeau says, "without Gord Downie in it."
CNN.com covered Trudeau's tribute to Downey in October 2017 (archived here), but the video was not playable at the time of writing.
The site also covered Trudeau's reaction to Trump's proposed tariffs on November 26, 2024 (archived here), reporting that the prime minister had spoken to Trump by telephone and quoting him as saying:
This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on and that's what we'll do.
We obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how, how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth ... We talked about some of the challenges that we can work on together and it was a good call. It's something that we can do laying out the facts moving forward in constructive ways.
CNN.com reported Trudeau's comments in print, not video, and did not mention him getting emotional.
Lead Stories also did a keyword search of CNN.com on November 27, 2024 (archived here), and found no sign of any video with the banner "TRUDEAU'S RESPONSE TO TARIFF NEWS," as seen in the video on X.
Moreover, the banner at the bottom of the video on X indicates that it supposedly aired on CNN's "Newsroom" program, but the font does not match the banners that the show uses in its 2024 broadcasts. For example, the banner on a "Newsroom" segment that aired on June 13, 2024 (archived here) -- the most recent piece available on the website at the time of writing -- featured a logo that looked like this:
(Source: CNN.com screenshot taken on Wed Nov 27 18:08:51 2024 UTC)
The banner in the X video appears to be based on an older version of a "Newsroom" logo, as seen in this video uploaded to YouTube on June 1, 2021 (see screenshot below). It has a red bar on top of the "CNN," and the word "Newsroom" is out of alignment with the "CNN" letters:
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Wed Nov 27 20:24:11 2024 UTC)
Here is a screenshot of the Trudeau video on X for comparison:
(Source: X.com screenshot taken on Wed Nov 27 19:02:46 2024 UTC)
The banner in the X video (above) also uses a different font from the one seen in the authentic CNN screenshot from 2024.
Trump announced his plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian exports to the U.S. on his Truth Social account on November 26, 2024 (archived here).
Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims about Justin Trudeau can be found here. Lead Stories fact checks of claims related to Donald Trump can be read here.
