Viral video of man slapping Donald Trump over his policies on Gaza is a deepfake

The iVerify Pakistan team investigated this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted a reverse image search to find the original video.

Posts from users on various social media platforms since April 9, 2025, shared a video showing a man allegedly slapping US President Donald Trump over his policies on Gaza. However, the video is from an incident in March 2016 and has been edited using AI.

​Trump has proposed that the US “take over” the Gaza Strip following the displacement of its Palestinian residents, aiming to transform the area into the “Riviera of the Middle East”. This proposal faced widespread international condemnation with Arab nations, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, united in rejecting the proposal, deeming it “unacceptable”.

HOW IT STARTED

The iVerify Pakistan team was alerted on April 10 about a post on TikTok and requested authentication for the content.

On April 9, a video clip was shared on TikTok by a user who appeared to be a PTI supporter, based on his past posts and username. The video showed a man slapping Trump from behind on a stage, with the claim that the slap was in response to his policies on Gaza.

“Earlier, people used to respect Trump a lot. When he announced the occupation of Palestine, now the people are throwing stones at Trump in public. Indeed, Allah is the truth, the God of truth. Now his own people have become his enemies. May Allah help the Muslims of Palestine,” said text overlaid on the video.

The post garnered over 2.4 million views, more than 118,000 likes and over 12,000 shares.

Other TikTok users also shared the same clip with similar claims here and here, collectively receiving an additional 2.4 million views, over 130,000 likes and more than 24,000 shares.

The same claim with visuals from the video was shared on Facebook and X as well.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its virality, to satisfy the public’s request for authentication and because of keen interest in the issue of Gaza and the Trump administration’s policies regarding it.

A visual analysis of the video showed signs of it being manipulated since the movement of the man who approached Trump from behind to slap him seemed unnatural.

Analysis of the video using tools to detect manipulation revealed that Attestiv.ai assigned it a 63 per cent suspicion rating while Deepware also flagged the content as a deepfake.

A reverse image search led to a video uploaded on YouTube by CBS News, a US news outlet, on March 12, 2016, titled: “Secret Service runs to Trump as protester rushes stage.”

In the original video, Trump can be seen addressing a public rally when there is sudden movement on the stage. He turns around to assess the situation, and at that moment, his security guards quickly surround him to ensure his safety, preventing any physical harm.

Furthermore, unlike the viral video, no man appears behind Trump on stage in the original video.

ABC News also reported on this incident on March 13, 2016, with the headline “Trump surrounded by Secret Service as man tries rushing stage.”

According to the report, during a rally in Ohio on March 12, 2016, Trump was surrounded by Secret Service agents after a man named Thomas Dimassimo attempted to rush the stage. Dimassimo was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and inducing panic. Trump, however, jokingly thanked the authorities for their swift response. Witnesses described how the Secret Service quickly apprehended Dimassimo and removed him from the scene.

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim that a video shows a man slapping Trump from behind on stage over his Gaza policies is false.

The video is old from March 2016, unrelated to the current Gaza crisis and has been edited to include the man slapping Trump.