AI Video Peddled As Jon Stewart Mocking Trump Over India Tariffs

A video claiming to show satirist and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart mocking United States President Donald Trump over tariffs on India which include jokes around samosas, the British Raj, and the Taj Mahal, is fake.

This is the second such deepfake video attributed to Stewart where he appears to be praising India for its defiant stance against the hiked tariffs.

Trump has imposed a 50% tariff on Indian goods against New Delhi’s purchase of Russian oil. The U.S. had already enforced a 25% tariff earlier this month, later Trump announced plans to double the rate, arguing that India’s oil trade with Russia indirectly funds Moscow's war in Ukraine.

The Claim: Video shows Stewart ridiculing Trump’s tariff policy toward India

The 59 seconds video was posted on X by the handle @MeghUpdates with the caption, "American anchor Brutually destroys Trump tarrif tantrums. "India survived British for hundreds of years. They are launching rockets to the moon for the price of your golf trip and you think you can scare India?""

BOOM has previously fact-checked misinformation posted by the X handle.

Click here to view an archive.

What We Found:

1) Source of the Video

Looking at the watermark on the viral video, we found that it was posted by the Instagram handle @new_bharat2071, which has been posting AI-dubbed videos. The account had previously posted another fake video of Jon Stewart criticizing Trump over tariffs on India, which was fact-checked by BOOM.

2) AI Deepfake Voice Detection Results

We analysed the 59-second video through two deepfake voice detection tools, Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector and DeepFake-O-Meter by the University at Buffalo’s Media Forensics Lab.

Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector gave the voice an authenticity score of 1/100, flagging it as highly likely to be a deepfake. Two results by DeepFake-O-Meter (UB Media Forensics Lab) gave the video a 100% likelihood that it was 'AI-generated Likehood'.

BOOM has reached out to The Daily Show for a response, the article will be updated on receiving one.