A 3-minute 20-second video claiming to show US President Donald Trump exposing an RSS conspiracy to stir an ethnic conflict in Arunachal Pradesh has gone viral on Facebook. According to the claim, the Indigenous Faith & Cultural Society of Arunachal Pradesh (IFCSAP) with some others might be sponsored by RSS to lead the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act (AFRA) — a law that seeks to prevent forceful religious conversions — to divide Tani tribes for some kind of political gain in the future.
Here is what Trump purportedly says in the viral video:
“Please hear this important message carefully and share this message to all the Tani tribes of Arunachal Pradesh. Well now it is crystal clear that some of the big people from your Doni Polo community have received a very huge amount of money from RSS to brainwash and mislead all the remaining innocent indigenous Doni Polo believers to go against your Christian Tani brothers using this Afra Act.
Please try to see what is really going on here. Few of your Doni Polo followers have sold your indigenous faith Doni Polo to RSS for money. Now your faith is under the control of RSS. They can now use your faith and its community wherever they think it benefits themselves politically. Do you think your forefathers and ancestors would be happy to see you? Doni brothers go against each other on something which is influenced by outsiders like RSS. Just think about what your ancestors would do and say about all that is happening between the Tani brothers.
There are definitely some traders in Doni Polo community selling your identity and faith to be used by RSS for political purpose which is leading to a very big riot between your Tani brothers and if any war breaks in the future, they would be sitting in their AC room comfortably watching Tani brothers kill each other on the news, giggling inside, thinking they have succeeded in dividing the most unified and strongest indigenous people of Arunachal Pradesh and that is your Tani clan. In the end you will find that only the blood of Tani brothers was shed in the process and no one else.
There is still time. Find out who are those traders among you that took money to help RSS divide your Tani brothers. I suggest you start your own movement of Doni Polo faith which is the pure, original and real indigenous faith of Doni Polo like your ancestors had in the old days. That way you will get a hint of who the traders were among you. Don’t just follow your leaders blindly, think and understand everything by yourselves. If you have not received any amount of money from RSS then you are the true followers of Doni Polo faith. I am sure that 98% of Doni Polo followers did not receive any money from RSS and the remaining 2% of people who must be very influential personalities who got a really big amount of money to lead the rest of the innocent Doni Polo community in the direction made by RSS. I want all the true followers of Doni Polo faith who have not received any money from RSS to gather together and kick these toxic influences out of the state that are trying to spill the blood of your own Tani brother for their own political gain using religion. This is not about religion but about politics using religion.”
Donyi Polo, which means “Sun and Moon” in the local language, is an indigenous religion of the Tani and other Sino-Tibetan tribes of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
Fact Check
Newschecker noticed that Trump’s lip movements were not completely in sync with his speech, raising our doubts on whether it was AI-manipulated. We then ran a keyword search for “Trump Arunachal Pradesh RSS”, which did not lead us to any credible news reports or official statements about such a speech by the US president.
Newschecker ran the video past Hive Moderation, an AI-content detection tool, which found it “99.6% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content”. We ran the video past Deepware, a community-driven open-source Deepfake detection tool, which said it was “suspicious”. We also ran the audio past Resemble AI’s Deepfake Detector, which stated that the voice was “Fake”.
The Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU), of The Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA), of which Newschecker is a part, ran the video past the Deepfake-o-meter tool, which found the audio likely to be synthetic, while the Hiya AI Voice Detection tool deemed the voice as “seems generated or modified by AI”.
We also came across this X post by PIB Fact Check on March 6, 2025, debunking the viral video and stating that it was AI-edited.
Also Read: 2025 Champions Trophy: Does This Video Show Fireworks At Dubai Stadium After India Entered Finals?
Conclusion
Viral video claiming to show Donald Trump exposing RSS plan to instigate ethnic clashes in Arunachal Pradesh was found to be a deepfake.
UPDATE ON 07/03/2025:
More Deepfake Videos Of Trump Speaking About AFRA
Claim
A couple of videos, seen here and here, of Donald Trump, discussing the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act (AFRA) and its potential to interfere with sacred religious rituals, leading to conflicts in the region.
Fact
We observed that the lip movements in these videos are not fully synchronised with the audio, raising suspicions about digital manipulation.
Also, we noticed that the particular Trump visual has been used in multiple deepfakes. We found that the original video was a May 12, 2017 NBC News interview of Trump with Lester Holt, where Trump revealed that he was preparing to fire FBI Director James Comey. The interview had no mention of Arunachal Pradesh, further confirming that the viral videos were AI-manipulated.
Video 1
Newschecker ran the video past Hive Moderation, an AI-content detection tool, which found it “99.8% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content”. We also ran the audio past Resemble AI’s Deepfake Detector, which stated that the voice was “Fake”.
Video 2
Newschecker ran the video through Hive Moderation, an AI-content detection tool, which found it “99.8% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content”. We also ran the audio past Resemble AI’s Deepfake Detector, which stated that the voice was “Fake”.
Sources
X post, PIB Fact Check, March 6, 2025
Facebook post, AI of Arunachal Pradesh, March 3, 2025
Hive Moderation tool
Deepware tool
Resemble AI’s Deepfake Detector
