Fact Check

Did Donald Trump Scare a Group of Schoolchildren?

A video showing terrified reactions of a group of children as the president enters a classroom is actually two different clips that were edited together.

Dan Evon

Published April 4, 2018

(Gage Skidmore)
Image Via Gage Skidmore
Claim:
A video shows a group of children frightened by President Donald Trump.
Rating:
False
False

About this rating

On 1 April 2018, a short clip started going viral, purportedly showing the terrified reactions of a group of first-graders as United States President Donald Trump entered their classroom:

If the original date of its appearance wasn't an immediate giveaway, we found that this is a particularly clever edit by Instagram user "Jimmy.Veg" that combines two different and unrelated videos.The first shows Trump visiting a group of first-grade students at the International Christian Academy in Nevada on 5 October 2016:


The second half apparently shows a group of children frightened by someone dressed as the Easter Bunny entering their classroom, not President Trump. We're not positive about the details of this footage, such as where and when it was taken, but the earliest posting we could find seems to have appeared around the end of March 2018:

By Dan Evon

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.