The audio clip includes former US President Donald Trump saying Republicans are the “stupidest group of voters in the country”.
An unknown user used artificial intelligence (AI) technology to create the fake Trump audio clip.
One false rumor that has circulated online for years is that former US President Donald Trump once told People magazine in 1998 that Republicans were “the dumbest group of voters in the country.”
The full quote was, “If I were to run, I would run as a Republican. They are the dumbest voter base in the country. They will believe anything Fox News tells them. If I lied, they would take it for granted. My approval ratings would be fantastic.”
The quote often featured in memes, as we reported in 2015 and 2020. But ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, the rumor has taken on new life.
On July 7, TikTok user @unclesmudge13 created a TikTok photo post that appeared to be an audio recording of Trump’s full quote from the meme, which has been viewed nearly 500,000 times.
One user who saw the post commented, “That’s the most honest thing he’s ever said!!” Another added, “This should go viral!”
Other users mentioned artificial intelligence (AI). For example, one user posted, “This was said way before AI,” while another wrote, “Yeah, that’s not AI either. I heard this way before AI was even a thing,” to which user @unclesmudge13 replied, “Exactly! I heard this on Howard Stern years ago and I think Oprah said the same thing.”
But the audio clip of Trump used in the TikTok photo post was fake — an unknown user used AI technology to create the fake audio — and, as we previously reported, there was no evidence that Trump said Republicans are the “stupidest group of voters.”
We’ve reached out to the TikTok account to ask where the user got the audio clip and will update this article if we hear back.
For more information on this rumor, we recommend this article from January 2024, which featured a TikTok post displaying one of the old quote memes.
