Video of Trump lauding Bangladesh leader is manipulated
"US President Donald Trump praised Dr Yunus," reads part of a Bengali-language Facebook post on May 12, 2025.
It features a blurry video apparently showing Trump commending Yunus during a meeting.
"Yunus is a great personality and my friend also. He has recently taken charge of the interim government of Bangladesh," Trump supposedly says. "Dr Yunus will play a big role in making Bangladesh prosperous."
Similar posts surfaced elsewhere on Facebook among Yunus's supporters as political parties jostling for power in Bangladesh were demanding the Nobel Peace Prize winner to fix an election timetable. He has since announced polls will be held April 2026 (archived link).
The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted by a student-led revolt in August 2024, ending her iron-fisted rule of 15 years.
Comments to the posts indicate some social media users believed the video was authentic.
"Sister will have a stroke if she heard this," a user wrote, referring to Hasina.
"America is praising him as they would gain huge benefit," another said.
A reverse image search on Google found footage of the meeting published on the verified Facebook page of American news channel Fox News on April 30, 2025 (archived link).
But the audio has been manipulated and nowhere in the original clip does Trump refer to Yunus.
"I just wanna thank everybody, this is really very impressive and I hope people at home get to see some of it," Trump says.
"Nobody's ever done public cabinet meetings. They were quiet for a reason because they weren't impressive, especially in the last administration."
The official YouTube account of The White House also published the full video of the meeting on the same day (archived link).
An analysis of the audio in the circulating clip using the voice cloning detection tool Hiya in the Verification Plugin, also known as InVID-WeVerify, found it is "very likely AI-generated" (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked misinformation about Trump and Bangladesh here and here.
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