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| - A fake video purportedly showing former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeatedly falling while using a walker on the House floor circulated widely online in early 2025.
A reverse-image search for the first frame of the clip showed the most popular share (archived) on the il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) X account. The user posted the video on Jan. 6, 2025, captioning it with the words, "STOP IT!" The clip received over 5 million views. The post displayed a barely visible watermark in the lower-right corner indicating the same user created the video.
One user responded under the clip, "Did this really happen?" That reply received more than 78,000 views. Other users also asked if the video was real. Our reverse-image search located numerous shares of the clip on Facebook, Threads, TikTok, X and YouTube.
However, the truth was the il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) X user created the video of Pelosi falling with an artificial-intelligence (AI) tool. A good number of users correctly noted this fact in replies under the posts sharing the clip. After all, a close watch of the video showed bodies, faces, arms, legs, wood furniture and other items bending and twisting in unnatural ways.
Getty Images photographer Chip Somodevilla captured the original picture the X user fed into an AI tool to create the short series of Pelosi-falling clips. The photo showed Pelosi entering the House floor with the assistance of a walker on Jan. 6, 2025, on the day Congress convened to certify the 2024 presidential election.
The Associated Press reported Pelosi, 84, had hip-replacement surgery in December after tripping and falling during a trip to Luxembourg. The reporting about the fall cited "people familiar with her injury who were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity."
For further reading, we previously reported about another fake video created by the il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) user showing U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell wearing a large bandage around his forehead, also following a fall.
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