On May 30, 2024, a New York jury found former U.S. President Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a scheme to silence a porn star. Soon after the verdicts' announcement, users shared a video purportedly showing a crowd celebrating Trump's conviction.
Some X users seemingly thought the video depicted a real scene, with one user asking , "Where is this? I have to patronize this bar." However, the video did not document a real scene. Rather, it was a manipulated version of a 2016 video depicting a crowd celebrating a soccer victory in England.
Creators of the viral video digitally placed real footage of CNN anchor Jake Tapper announcing Trump's guilty verdict onto a giant television, where, in reality, the crowd was watching the soccer game.
The May 2024 video contained a watermark for The Lincoln Project, a self-described, anti-Trump Republican political action committee . Based on that evidence, Project Lincoln seemingly created the fake clip. (We reached out to the group to confirm and will update this story if we receive a response.)
The 2016 clip has been meme fodder for years. We debunked a similar video in 2023, which claimed to show the same crowd celebrating the release of Trump's mugshot. Years earlier, in 2021, the clip circulated as if it showed a Toronto bar erupting in applause while watching NBA player Kevin Durant's 2019 playoff-ending injury.
As we've reported before, the 2016 crowd was actually reacting to a goal in a match between England and Wales. The original video was captioned on YouTube, "Fans at Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol, celebrate England winner against Wales at Euro 2016."
"Fans at Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol, Celebrate England Winner against Wales at Euro 2016." Heart News West Country, 2016. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jvmmkx1dtmA . Accessed 31 May 2024.
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