Viral video of Donald Trump mocking Pakistan amid IWT suspension

Rating Justification

The iVerify Pakistan team has checked this content and has established that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted a reverse image search to verify the video.

Posts from multiple users on social media platforms X and Facebook since April 29, 2025, circulated a video, claiming it showed President Donald Trump mocking Pakistan while sipping from a water bottle amid the Indus Waters Treaty controversy. However, the video is from a February 2016 campaign rally where Trump was mocking his then-rival, Marco Rubio.

Relations between Pakistan and India turned exceedingly sour since an attack took place in Pahalgam, a tourist hotspot in India-occupied Kashmir that draws thousands of visitors every summer, on April 22. Gunmen opened fire on visitors, killing at least 26 people — all men from across India except one from Nepal — and injuring 17 others. Following the attack, India, without providing evidence, implied that attackers had links to Pakistan, an allegation that Islamabad has vehemently refuted.

The incident led to a severe downgrading of ties between the two countries and Indus holding the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance. Since then, the Indian mainstream and social media outlets have been spreading propaganda against Pakistan.

HOW IT STARTED

The iVerify Pakistan team was alerted on May 2 about a post on X and was asked to authenticate the content.

On April 29, a known Indian propagandist account shared a 17-second clip, showing Trump jokingly drinking from a water bottle while saying: “I need water. Help me. I need water. Help.”

The caption of the post read: “Donald Trump mocking Pakistan?”

The post garnered over 207,200 views and 1,100 reshares.

A similar clip with the same caption was shared by other users on X as can be seen here, here and here, with 22,400, 442,300, and 9,900 views respectively.

The same clip was also circulated on Facebook and can be viewed here and here.

METHODOLOGY

The iVerify Pakistan team investigated the claim due to its high virality and keen public interest in all developments related to the Pakistan-India tensions.

A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video led to an extended version of the same footage, which was uploaded on the official Facebook page of NBC News on February 27, 2016.

The video’s caption read: “Donald J. Trump mocks 2016 rival Marco Rubio’s infamous water bottle moment while on a campaign stop in Fort Worth, Texas, on February 26, 2016.”

Further verification through a reverse image search of a screenshot from the clip led to a 46-second video uploaded on CNN’s YouTube channel titled “Trump mocks Rubio’s SOTU water incident”, published on February 27, 2016.

The video is from a February 2016 campaign rally where Trump mocked his then-presidential rival for awkwardly drinking water during his 2013 response to then-president Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

In the video, Trump addresses the crowd, recounting the moment and saying: “Do you remember that disaster when Marco Rubio was asked to respond to President Obama’s speech, and how he was gasping for water in the middle of the speech?”

He then mimics Rubio by holding a bottle, spilling some water on the floor, and drinking from it.

Furthermore, it was unlikely for Trump to have mocked Pakistan amid the Indus Waters Treaty tension since he had expressed hope on April 25 that Pakistan and India would “figure out” the rising tensions between them.

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim that a video shows US President Donald Trump mocking Pakistan while sipping from a water bottle amid tensions with India is false.

The footage is from a 2016 campaign rally and has no connection to Pakistan or the current situation with India.

Evidence and References

February 27, 2016, CNN YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-s7eG2ckN4

February 27, 2016, NBC News Facebook video:
https://archive.md/prJjm