Donald Trump event footage altered to include Kanye West song
- Published on February 22, 2024 at 21:41
- 2 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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"Donald Trump walking out to CARNIVAL at Philly," says a February 18, 2024 post on X, formerly Twitter.
The post references West's new track with rapper Ty Dolla $ign, "Carnival," which topped Billboard's streaming charts following its February 2024 release.
Similar posts purporting to show footage of Trump playing the rap duo's song as he walked onto the stage at a February 17 "Sneaker Con" event -- where he hawked new Trump-branded footwear selling for $399 -- spread across X and other platforms, such as TikTok.
It would have been a new embrace of West for Trump, who faced backlash in 2022 for hosting the rapper and notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes at his Florida estate for dinner. West, who previously visited Trump's White House, was dropped from lucrative commercial deals and some social media platforms after a series of anti-Semitic remarks, including praise for Adolf Hitler.
But the video is manipulated.
A live stream from the conservative Right Side Broadcasting Network shows the former president emerged with Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." blaring in the background (archived here).
The crowd greeted the Republican, who is running to retake the White House while embroiled in several criminal investigations, with a mix of boos and cheers, according to US media reports.
Greenwood's ode to the United States is a staple at Trump's rallies, and the country music veteran sang at Trump's inauguration in 2017.
AFP contacted the Trump 2024 campaign for comment, but no response was forthcoming.
The doctored video appears to have reached West himself.
Various hip-hop websites, Ye fan accounts and other social media users shared apparent screen recordings that claimed to show the rapper posted the altered clip on Instagram, writing, "This made me smile."
AFP could not independently verify whether West shared the clip, and West's publicist did not respond to a request for comment on the matter. But a link to a since-deleted February 17 post featuring the same caption shows up in Google search results.
West has 19.7 million Instagram followers.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about US politics here.
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