A couple of videos, purportedly showing two protesters, a different one in each clip, climbing onto a stage to slap US president Donald Trump while he is addressing a crowd, has gone viral on social media. The video, shared by multiple users lauding the alleged assault, went viral against the backdrop of Trump’s recent controversial decision to impose hefty tariffs on over 75 countries, which the US president has now paused for 90 days, except for China, amid a global pushback.
The archived versions of the post can be seen here and here.
Fact Check
Newschecker noticed that both the videos seemed to be from the same event, considering the text on the podium and the sequence of events after the purported assault, indicating that they were not real footage. Also, the difference in clarity between the “protesters” and the rest of the footage further suggested that the videos were digitally altered.
We noticed that the text on the podium read, “Dayton, Ohio”, along with the slogan, “Make America Great Again”, which indicated that the video was from Trump’s successful presidential campaigns of 2016 or 2024.
Taking a cue, we ran a keyword search for “Dayton Ohio protester Trump”, which led us to multiple news reports from March 2016 stating that a protester jumped a barrier and attempted to rush the then presidential candidate Donald Trump on stage at a rally in Dayton, Ohio before being tackled by secret service officers. The reports can be seen here, here, here and here.
A higher quality version of the viral video, along with footage from different angles can be seen in the reports, where you clearly see that there was no direct contact between the protester and Trump as the former was pinned down before reaching the edge of the stage. Also, a photo of the protester can be seen in this ABC News report, dated March 16, 2016, identifying him as Thomas DiMassimo, who was charged with one count of knowingly entering restricted grounds. Similar Guardian and CNN reports can be seen here and here, where you can clearly see it is not the same person in any of the viral videos, confirming that the viral videos were digitally altered.
The Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU) of the Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA), of which Newschecker is a part, ran screengrabs past WasitAI, an AI-image detector, which suspected generative elements at certain frames, further proving that they were edited.
Conclusion
Digitally manipulated videos showing US president Donald Trump being slapped by protesters shared as real footage.
Source
The Guardian report, March 14, 2016
CBS report, March 12, 2016
ABC News report, March 16, 2016
DAU analysis