Following U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates in May 2025, a video (here, here & here) is being widely shared on social media claiming to show the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, expressing regret for inviting Trump to Qatar. In the video, Tamim allegedly calls Trump a “robber” who desires luxury items from them and craves media attention. Let’s verify the authenticity of this video.
Claim: Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is expressing regret for inviting Trump to Qatar in May 2025.
Fact: This is a deepfake video. The viral clip was created using visuals from the 2017 CBS interview, overlaid with AI-generated audio. There are no reports of the Emir of Qatar making such statements. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
First, we searched the internet to see if the Emir of Qatar had made any such comments on Trump, but found no credible media reports. We then conducted a reverse image search of keyframes extracted from the viral video and found that the original footage matches a video uploaded to the Facebook and YouTube channels of Al Jazeera on 30 October 2017.
According to the description, the video is from a CBS ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in which he discusses Qatar’s diplomatic crisis with other Gulf countries and how they are attempting to force a change in leadership. We also examined the full interview transcript but found no statements by him referring to Trump, as seen in the viral clip.
A closer look at the viral video reveals unnatural movements around Tamim’s eyes and mouth, indicating possible AI manipulation. We further analysed the video’s audio using several AI-detection tools, including Hive Moderation, Deepfake-O-Meter, and Resemble AI, all of which confirmed that the audio is AI-generated and inauthentic. Therefore, it is evident that the viral clip was created using visuals from Tamim’s 2017 CBS interview, overlaid with AI-generated audio.
To sum it up, a deepfake video is being shared as the Emir of Qatar expressing regret for inviting Trump to Qatar in May 2025.
