A video which has since become viral on social media shows Donald Trump saying,
“I’m a big fan of Hindus and India; if elected as President, the Indian community will have a true friend in the White House.”
The video with captions of the Republican Presidential candidate is being widely shared and is being seen in the context of the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential elections in November 2024.
Let us delve deeper and see the authenticity of the video and if it was recent.
Old Video of Donald Trump Praising Hindus Resurfaces
However, the video which is being promoted to showcase Donald Trump as a big fan of Hindu and India ahead of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Elections is actually from an Indian-American charity event in Edison, N.J. which was held on 16 October 2016
In the event, Trump declared that he was a big fan of Hindus and also stated that India was a key ally and heaped praises on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The event was organized to shore up Trump’s image among Indian-American voters before the 2016 election, then running for president against Hillary Clinton.
Hence the latest claim made by Trump’s campaign team is misleading.
An investigation was conducted by the media house Factly.in and conducted a reverse image search of the keyframes taken from the viral video which led to a video posted by Asian News International on 16 October 2016 on their Facebook page.
The video was captioned #WATCH US Elections 2016 and in the video, Trump can be seen stating,
“I’m a big fan of Hindus & India; if elected as (the US) President, the Indian community will have a true friend in the White House”.
The complete video was also published on the YouTube channel of the ‘Republican Hindu Coalition’.
A relevant keyword search also revealed more details of the event. The event was organized by the Republican Hindu Coalition, and aimed to strengthen Trump’s appeal among Indian-American voters just weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Donald Trump also stated that his anti-bureaucracy and nationalist views were much akin to the policies followed by Narendra Modi. He also stated that India would be a key ally under his administration and that the two nations would cooperate in intelligence sharing and security.
Donald Trump said at the event,
“I look forward to doing some serious bureaucratic trimming right here in the United States. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with India in sharing intelligence and keeping our people safe mutually.” Trump also blamed Hillary Clinton for the rise in Terrorism.
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