Original article (in Montenegrin) was published on 6/2/2024; Author: Marko Vukajlović
The standoff over illegal immigration between the Texas state government and the U.S. federal government persists. There has been rampant disinformation about this conflict in Southeast Europe, including false reports of a declared state of war, tanks on the streets, a convoy of trucks heading south to bolster anti-immigration measures, and substantial support from the farmers in the U.S.
An alleged speech by Texas Governor Greg Abbott is currently circulating. It’s claimed that Abbott suggested US President Joe Biden should emulate his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. RT Balkan published the following headline:
“Texas Governor: Biden should learn from Putin”
The report attributes the following statement to Abbott:
“If only the President had been dealing with real internal problems instead of trying to engage with Putin, from whom he needs to learn how to work for national interests, then everything would have been different.”
The news quickly spread across social media (1, 2, 3 – archived here, here, and here).
A segment of Abbott’s interview aired on RT was shown with Russian subtitles, despite being an interview originally given to Fox. Contrary to what was reported, Abbott did not make such statements, and the audio was found to be altered.
At the moment attributed to Governor Abbott’s alleged remarks about President Biden looking up to Putin, he is off-camera, and the footage instead displays migrants in Texas, leaving viewers with only the audio. This scenario facilitated the manipulation of Abbott’s voice.
The original video, available on Fox’s website, reveals that Abbott was actually discussing the migration policies of Donald Trump at that time.
Fox has confirmed to Reuters that the contentious section of the video was indeed altered.
Due to the clear discrepancy between the original content and the altered version, the report by RT has been classified as fake news.
This designation applies to original media coverage—content fully produced by the media outlet that published it—that contains factually incorrect allegations or information. Content labeled as fake news can be conclusively identified as having been crafted and spread with the intent to mislead the public, namely, to present entirely false information as fact.