Deepfake video alters Ron DeSantis’ speech and skews his political record

A viral video claims that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made some surprising admissions about his political career. 

"People wanna know, why did I sign red flag gun confiscations into law? Why did I sign state-forced vaccinations into law?" DeSantis appeared to say. "Why did I claim victory over Disney when they’re still ‘woke,’ still self-governing and tax-exempt? Why did I take huge donations from globalist elites like Citadel, why did I hire a foreign agent with ties to George Soros to run my gaslight campaign? Why did I stab the greatest president we ever had, a man to whom I owe my career, in the back? Well the answer is easy folks — that’s where the money is." 

The video was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook.) 

But the video’s a deepfake, manipulated from footage of DeSantis’ February 2022 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

The transcript of DeSantis’ real CPAC speech doesn’t mention the claims in the altered video. 

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There are clues showing the clip was altered. First, the audio doesn’t match DeSantis’ mouth movements in the video; it’s out of sync. 

A longer version of the video was shared in a March 11 TikTok post, but the TikTok user said in the comments on the post that the video was a "bad lip reading." At the end of the TikTok video, emojis and graphics on screen show it’s a joke. But the Instagram version cuts off before those emojis and graphics appear.

The manipulated video misrepresents parts of DeSantis’ record:  

• He did not sign a red flag gun confiscation law. That was now-U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, who in 2017 as Florida governor signed a red flag confiscation bill into law after the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School. 

• DeSantis opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates. In November 2021, he signed a bill into law that blocked private companies, government entities and educational institutions from mandating the vaccine.

We rate the claim that this video shows DeSantis saying he made certain political choices because "that’s where the money is" Pants on Fire!