Clip of Poland’s MP Donald Tusk saying he will not deliver his election campaign promises is a deepfake

What is the claim?

A viral clip was circulated on social media with Poland’s Civic Platform (PO) leader and former Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, saying he will not deliver on the election promises made for the Polish parliamentary elections held on October 15. In the video, Tusk appeals to voters and supposedly announces his party’s plans to open the German work market for the Poles and promises to abide by the rules of the European Union (translated from Polish). The clip ends with Tusk speaking in German. 

However, Logically Facts found that the viral clip is a deepfake. 

What did we find?

Logically Facts performed a reverse image search on the keyframes of the video. The video clip is taken from Donald Tusk’s post-election speech broadcast on October 17 on Tusk’s Facebook page.

Comparing the viral clip to the original footage, Logically Facts found discrepancies in Tusk’s mouth movements and hand movements, indicating that the viral footage had been digitally altered. Examining the viral clip makes it easy to spot that Tusk’s mouth movements do not match the audio and the tone of Tusk’s voice slightly differs in the two videos.

The 2023 Polish parliamentary election witnessed the highest turnout in the country’s history, reaching over 74 percent. The voting was to end at 9 p.m., however, polling stations remained open to accept all voters who queued up. According to reports, the last polling stations closed at 5 a.m. local time. 

In the original video, Tusk expressed his gratitude to the determined voters and hard-working election workers and spoke of the historic voter turnout. Tusk also appealed to the Polish President, Andrzej Duda, to swiftly decide on the party to form the new government and follow the will of the electorate. Tusk does not speak in German in the video, and neither does Tusk say anything about disregarding the promises of the election campaign. 

Logically Facts researched Donald Tusk, election promises, and the German work market and found no credible reporting or sources indicating Tusk would have made the statements elsewhere either. 

In the 2023 election, the Civic Coalition, led by Donald Tusk, secured the majority with 248 seats in Poland’s parliament on October 15. The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party became the largest single party with 194 parliamentary seats. Despite the likely difficulty in seeking the favor of enough MPs for a majority, on November 6, President Duda nominated the outgoing Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (PiS) to try to form a new government. 

Logically Facts has previously covered and refuted false and misleading claims about Poland’s 2023 parliamentary elections.

The verdict

The video of Donald Tusk saying he will not deliver the election campaign promises is a deepfake. Logically Facts found Tusk’s mouth and voice have been digitally altered from Tusk’s post-election speech on October 17. In the original video, Tusk expresses gratitude for voters and election workers. Neither did we find credible reporting of Tusk disregarding his election promises. Therefore, we have marked the claim as fake.