Video altered so that dancer looks like Tim Walz
Watch Tim Walz’s teenage son Gus react to him on stage
Tim Walz’s 17-year-old son suffers from ADHD as well as a nonverbal learning disorder and an anxiety disorder.
The claim: Video shows Tim Walz dancing with dollar bills in his belt
A Facebook video from August 19 (direct link, archive link) is said to show a man with glasses and a cowboy hat dancing with dollar bills in his waistband.
“Recently found video of Tampon Tim,” reads the text in the video, which is a repost of a TikTok video and refers to a derogatory nickname for Walz.
The post was shared more than 2,300 times within a week.
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Our rating: Changed
The video was digitally manipulated, an expert said. The dancer’s face was altered to resemble Walz. A spokesman for the governor also said that Walz was not the person in the video.
Recordings of a real dancer are circulating on social media platforms
Hany Farid, a professor specializing in digital forensics at the University of California, Berkeley, said the Facebook video was doctored to make the dancer look like Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
“This is clearly a face-swap deepfake, where the original face in the video has been replaced with the face of Governor Walz,” Farid said in an email. “There are clear visual artifacts throughout the video, especially when the hand moves in front of the face.”
Claire Lancaster, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office, also said the person in the video was not Walz.
Fact check: No, Anthony Oliver did not send Tim Walz a cease and desist order because of a song
Several videos of the real dancer wearing the same clothing as in the Facebook video have been posted on YouTube and other social media platforms. The man in the videos is not wearing glasses and is not Walz.
“Tampon Tim” is a reference to the nickname given by some Republican critics to Walz, who passed a law in 2023 requiring public schools to provide sanitary products to “all menstruating students” in fourth through 12th grades, Minnesota Public Radio reported.
The Facebook user who shared the altered video did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Logical facts have also refuted this claim.
Our fact-checking sources:
- Hany Farid, August 26, email exchange with USA TODAY
- Claire Lancaster, August 26, email exchange with USA TODAY
- ProRG504 (YouTube), January 29, 956 days ago
- @efrainnarva956 July 6 TikTok video
- Alejandro Casas El Divo 956 Original, May 6, Facebook video
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