A video claiming to show comedian and Daily Show show host Jon Stewart slamming United States President Donald Trump over imposing steep tariffs on India, is fake.
On July 30, 2025, Trump announced tariffs on Indian imports, starting with a 25% “reciprocal” tariff that took effect on August 1. Less than a week later, on August 6, he escalated the measure by another 25% increase in response to India’s continued purchases of Russian oil, bringing the total tariff burden to 50%, which is scheduled to take effect on August 27.
The Claim: Video shows Stewart mocking Trump for imposing 50 percent tariff on India
The viral video was posted the Instagram handle @theexclusiveminds on August 12, in which it purportedly shows Stewart saying, “So Trump’s throwing a 50% tariff on India for buying Russian oil like that’s gonna scare a country with 5,000 years of history. India looked at him like bro, we survive the British we can survive your math, he’s up there yelling no more cheap goods from India. Meanwhile his tie is made in China, his hotel towers are from Mumbai, and his hairpiece probably outsourced too, but wait. You don’t know about your own, wtf. India send this guy some chai and a samosa, maybe he will eat, calm down and remember what country he’s running.”
Click here to view an archive
BOOM has previously fact-checked Exclusive Minds for posting misinformation.
What We Found:
1) No record of Stewart making such remarks
We checked recent episodes of The Daily Show from late July and August 2025. Stewart did not deliver any such segment on Trump's of tariffs on India. Further more we did not find any reporting about the above video in any credible US or Indian media outlet attributing it to Stewart.
2) Mismatch in Stewart outfit and episode timeline
The outfit Stewart is seen wearing in the viral video matches one he last wore on the January 28, 2025 episode of The Daily Show. That episode predates Trump’s Indian tariff announcement by nearly several months and contained no segment about the Indian tariffs. This can be seen below:
3) AI-generated voice analysis suggests manipulation
We tested the viral video on multiple deepfake / voice authenticity tools including Hiya and DeepFake-O-Meter developed by the UB Media Forensics Lab.
Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector returned different results for different sentences ranging from 21/100 to 54/100, flagging uncertainty and even stating that the audio was “likely a deepfake.”
One of the results by DeepFake-O-Meter (UB Media Forensics Lab) gave the clip a 100% likelihood that it was 'AI-generated Likehood'.
