Fake subtitles misrepresent Trump comments as insults against former S. Korean president
- Published on April 18, 2025 at 10:52
- 4 min read
- By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"There is no other idiot like this, the boiled cowhead," reads a Korean-language post on Facebook on April 16, referring to Moon by a slur based on a term previously used by a North Korean government agency.
The approximately one-minute video in the post includes three clips of Trump: one during a meeting with Moon and two different public addresses.
Korean-language captions throughout the video claim they represent "actual comments from Trump after he met Moon Jae-in."
The first accuses Moon of "putting on a show" for a reporter from the South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh while Trump watches him pathetically. The second claims it depicts Trump insulting Moon's intelligence, and the third is described as Trump mocking Moon for reading off a piece of paper.
The same video was shared alongside similar claims on Facebook and Ilbe, a far-right South Korean forum, while the third clip in the compilation previously circulated in multiple South Korean social media posts that also claimed Trump was mocking Moon.
The former president is a regular target of right-wing misinformation, debunked by AFP here, here, and here.
Some users left comments indicating they believed the captions were accurate.
One user wrote: "Look at that idiot [Moon] laughing, oblivious to the fact that he is being mocked and laughed at."
"This is a national humiliation," wrote another user.
But the subtitles misrepresent Trump's actual comments.
First clip
A keyword search found the first video of Trump seated next to Moon in the Oval Office corresponds to footage of a meeting between the two leaders at the White House on May 22, 2018 during Moon's visit to the United States (archived link).
As Moon listens to a question from a South Korean reporter, Trump remarks, "He's a friendly reporter. They're friends. So let them -- like you. Except he kills me. For a friendly reporter, he kills me."
The remarks are also recorded in the Trump White House archives from his first term in office (archived link).
Second clip
The second clip, which the false subtitles claim is a recent Trump speech, was actually delivered in Missouri on November 30, 2017 and can be seen in a video uploaded by the Washington Post the same day (archived link).
"And when I was in Asia, I spoke to a couple of countries about it, and they looked like this, you know what this is?" Trump can be heard in the corresponding section of the video. He makes a movement with hunched-over shoulders and nods as he speaks.
The full speech shows that while Trump was mocking Asian leaders' gestures, he was actually referring to how the United States was protecting wealthy Asian countries without receiving fair due -- accusations he has made repeatedly regarding defence cost-sharing negotiations with South Korea and Japan (archived link).
The comments can also be read in the Trump White House archives (archived link).
Third clip
The final video of Trump reading off a piece of paper was taken from a rally in West Virginia on September 29, 2018 (archived link).
The false captions claim Trump was mocking South Korea's Democratic Party as being "easy to deal with" and imitating Moon with the gesture, but he was in fact taking a jab at one of his predecessors, George H. W. Bush (archived link).
"It's so easy to be presidential," Trump says as he stares at a piece of paper.
"All I have to do is: 'Thank you very much for being here ladies and gentlemen. It's great to see you all, you're great Americans.'"
He goes on to say: "Thousand points of light. Which nobody has really figured out" -- a reference to an expression famously used by Bush in his 1989 inaugural address (archived link).
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
