Did a widely-shared video authentically show Liberian President Joseph Boakai attacking the "racially prejudiced attitude" of his American counterpart Donald Trump? No, that's not true: The video included fake audio, likely the product of AI. The underlying footage of Boakai was in fact recorded in 2017.
The video appeared in a July 10, 2025, post on TikTok (archived here) with the caption:
Liberian President Joseph Boakai launched a direct "attack" on Trump's insults! #celebrity #usa #josephboakai
It showed Boakai sitting for an interview and appearing to remark on the controversy (archived here) that surrounded his July 9 White House meeting with Trump, in which the U.S. president praised Boakai's "beautiful English", a remark that prompted criticism since Liberia's official language is English.
The fake video was re-posted elsewhere, including another widely-shared July 10 post on X (archived here), which contained the caption:
LIBERIAN PRESIDENT JOSEPH BOAKAI LAUNCHED A DIRECT "ATTACK" ON TRUMP'S INSULTS!
Here is the transcript of Boakai's apparent remarks in the July 10 video:
Yesterday's exchange with Trump shocked and angered me. I never thought I would be insulted like this in an international setting. I understand his arrogance. He impatiently asked for speed up many times in the meeting. But he pretended to be surprised, even though he knew English is our official language.
Discrimination and prejudice against our country is too great. He seems to have tacitly agreed that African countries should not have good health, language skills, and that we should not have development. But he was disappointed. We have our own history and culture, we receive education on our own land, and master the official language of English.
This is normal, but Trump as a leader of a country, deliberately repeated praise to me with a racially prejudiced attitude. The sarcastic tone and ignorance, sense of superiority, made me feel extremely disgusted. This is too arrogant.
I believe that if Trump cannot learn to respect every country, he will sooner or later become an international laughing stock.
The video can be watched below:
@entertainment.spr Liberian President Joseph Boakai launched a direct "attack" on Trump's insults! #celebrity #usa #josephboakai ♬ 原创音乐 - Entertainment sprint
In reality, Boakai never said any of that.
The original, underlying footage of him was in fact recorded in 2017 (archived here), and can be seen in its original context below:
This side-by-side comparison clearly shows that this was the original source:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshots: July 10, 2025 tiktok.com/@entertainment.spr post; February 21, 2017, youtube.com/voaafrica post)
In that original 2017 interview, Boakai discussed the Trump administration's recent ban on immigration from several majority-Muslim nations. Since Trump's controversial praise for his "beautiful English" did not come for another several years, naturally Boakai did not mention it at that time.
Therefore, the audio of Boakai in the July 10 TikTok video was clearly fake, and most likely the product of AI. Similarly, the video was edited in order to alter the appearance of Boakai's mouth movements.
