Donald Trump promises to get Imran Khan out of jail if he wins US elections

Rating Justification

The iVerify Pakistan team has reviewed this content and determined it is false.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted a reverse image search to find the original clip of Donald Trump.

On November 5, several users on TikTok shared a video of US presidential candidate Donald Trump saying that if he wins the US elections, he’ll try his best to get Imran Khan out of jail. However, the video is dubbed over and is originally from 2017.

Trump’s Republican Party is currently in the race for the US presidential elections, which are scheduled for November 5, facing off against the Democratic Party led by current Vice President Kamala Harris as his toughest competitor.

Imran Khan has been imprisoned in Adiala Jail for over a year. His sentences in the previous two Toshakhana cases were suspended, and he was acquitted in the cipher and iddat cases, but he has since been charged in a third Toshakhana case.

HOW IT STARTED

On November 5, a user on TikTok, who is a PTI supporter based on his username and past posts, shared a video of Trump saying that if he wins the US presidential elections, he will try his best to get Khan out of jail.

In the clip, Donald can be heard saying, “Hello, my Pakistani American friends. I promise, that if I win, I will try my best to get Imran Khan out of jail as soon as possible. He is my friend, I love him. I will support him to take over the government again, and rock, and we will work together to make our ties stronger. Imran Khan Zindabad”.

The video garnered 2.4 million views and was reshared 19,300 times.

The same video was also shared on YouTube here, here and here.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to verify the claim due to its virality and the ongoing US election season. There is a popular narrative among Khan’s supporters suggesting that Trump becoming president could tip the scales in favor of the incarcerated former prime minister.

Upon investigating the clip, the team noticed discrepancies between the audio and Trump’s lip movements, suggesting that the video appeared to be dubbed.

To further investigate the circulated video, a Google reverse image search was conducted to trace the original clip, which yielded results from May 12, 2017, on NBC News’ YouTube channel which redirected to Trump’s exclusive interview with Lester Holt, titled, “President Donald Trump on his firing of James Comey (Extended Exclusive)”.

The description of the YouTube video also provided context that Trump was justifying his action of firing then-FBI Director James Comey to the interviewer.

The reverse image search also yielded versions of the same dubbed video from March 2024, implying that this isn’t the first time that dubbed clip went viral and that it was fact-checked back then by Indian fact-checking outlet Newschecker.

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim regarding Donald Trump reassuring Pakistani Americans that, if he gets elected as the president of the United States, he will get Imran Khan out of jail as soon as possible is false.

The clip has been dubbed over and is from 2017 when Trump was not talking about Khan but firing former FBI Director James Comey.

Evidence and References

May 12, 2017, Original YouTube video of Trump:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Wvuw_Zmubg

March 26, 2024, Indian news outlet, Newschecker’s fact check:
https://newschecker.in/fact-check/ai-generated-video-shared-to-show-donald-trump-supporting-pakistans-imran-khan/