Altered video appears to show Trump discussing Kanye West

In November, former President Donald Trump hosted and dined with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West who by then was under fire for antisemitic comments. 

In early December, Ye falsely claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler "didn’t kill 6 million Jews" and that the Holocaust didn’t happen. 

A few days later, a video of Trump was circulating online. "Kanye has some some stuff recently that people don’t agree with but I just can’t be upset with the man who made ‘Graduation,’" Trump appears to say, referring to Ye’s 2007 album.  

A post sharing the video was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Text of Trump’s apparent comments appears over his face in the video, but if you look closely, the audio doesn’t sync with the movement of his lips. 

Featured Fact-check

Threads posts

stated on October 26, 2024 in a Threads post

Four Florida counties had “zero results” Oct. 26, and “something underhanded might be happening.”

The original footage of Trump is from a 2017 NBC News interview with anchor Lester Holt. Ye wasn’t mentioned during that interview. 

The footage of Trump has previously been paired with fake audio in TikTok videos. And following Ye’s controversies, the defense "but he made ‘Graduation,’" has drawn attention, as fans discuss separating the artist from his art.

But we found no evidence that Trump said this. 

We rate claims that this is authentic footage of Trump defending Ye False.