Video of Tim Walz dancing in anti-Trump shirt is fake
- Published on September 4, 2025 at 16:53
- 3 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
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"Something is wrong with Tim Walz," says an August 30, 2025 post from "Johnny Midnight," an X account that has repeatedly spread disinformation.
The video appears to show Walz dancing and singing along to "Don't Cha" by The Pussycat Dolls, an American girl group, as he rides down an escalator in a white T-shirt with a message cursing out the US President.
The clip spread across X and other platforms -- including TikTok, Facebook and Instagram -- after an August 27 shooting at a church filled with children in Minneapolis, Minnesota thrust Walz's state into the national spotlight.
US Congressman Riley Moore, who represents West Virginia, was among those who reposted the clip.
"If you were at the mall with your kids and this guy rolled down the escalator, you would call the cops and get him banned," he wrote August 31.
But the video is altered, with Walz's face edited onto another person's body.
AFP previously debunked two other similarly doctored clips that portrayed Walz dancing when he was up for election as Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris's running mate in 2024.
A keyword search on TikTok uncovered the original video posted August 6 by "@RoggenRoland" (archived here).
The same person has posted several other videos on his page that show him wearing the same anti-Trump top, which he said in response to another user's comment was ordered from Amazon (archived here).
The user, who asked to be identified by his TikTok handle out of concern for his privacy, confirmed to AFP the original video was his.
In a September 3 statement, @RoggenRoland criticized "the dissemination of such an obviously altered video by Representative Moore, without fact-checking."
On TikTok and Instagram, he warned that the altered version was a "fake trending among MAGA" and a "deepfake video that falsely depicted Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz" (archived here and here).
Jebra Faushay, an X user whose post was the earliest AFP could find sharing the fake, wrote in replies to other users that she "swapped the face" and that the person dancing was not really Walz. Her account bio says she posts "satire."
AFP contacted Walz's office for comment, but no response was forthcoming.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about US politics here.
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