Did President-elect Donald Trump announce during a podcast interview with Joe Rogan that Americans could "claim their $6,400 relief checks" as of November 25, 2024? No, that's not true: The post saying this used altered audio with a real video of a Trump interview on the Joe Rogan show. There was no mention of a "relief" check in the real, nearly three-hour episode.
The claim originated in a video shared on Facebook on November 21, 2024, (archived here) with a caption that read:
Biden Gives $6400 Check For FREE 🇺🇸💵
Every American is entitled to this cash benefit
This means you can have extra money in your pocket every month for gas, groceries and rent
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken Sun Nov 24 18:10:32 2024 UTC)
The visual portion of the video shared on Facebook was taken from a genuine interview between Rogan and Trump in episode 2219 of the "Joe Rogan Experience," published on YouTube on October 25, 2024 (archived here).
However, the audio had been altered to say the following:
Yes, they did, and they're a bunch of crooks for doing that because it was practically stimulus checks for the American people.
It's crazy, right? These political crooks really don't want the American people to know that they can get these funds because if they do, then that means they can't use it to fund their personal agendas. But listen, there is hope because after this podcast is out, people should be able to go to the official site and claim their $6,400 relief checks. My team is exposing all the lies they've been hiding from you.
The genuine interview did not mention a "relief" check throughout the nearly three-hour recording.
The video shared on Facebook does not provide evidence to support its claims about the supposed $6,400 stimulus check, such as a link to the "official" site mentioned.
A closer look at the video on Facebook also showed discrepancies between the audio and the mouth movements. The two don't align properly, indicating that the video had been altered.
Lead Stories extracted the audio portion of the video and ran it through the online AI detection tool True Media, which found (archived here) the voices showed "substantial evidence of manipulation."
(Source: True Media screenshot taken Mon Nov 25 22:33:23 UTC 2024)
True Media adds human analysis to its reports and labels analyses "Unverified" until a human analyst has also examined the content. Lead Stories will update the TrueMedia report when human analysis is added.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims involving Joe Rogan can be read here. Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims involving Donald Trump can be read here. For more Lead Stories fact checks on claims regarding stimulus programs, click here.
