Fact Check: Trump bans Indian customer service agents from US companies? No, video is digitally manipulated

Amid these political developments, a video of a news report claiming Trump issued an executive order regarding a new ‘Customer Service Bill’ is going viral on social media.

In the video, a reporter can be heard asking US president Trump about his new customer service bill. Trump replies that companies can no longer hide behind email-only correspondence and can’t hire foreigners with thick accents as customer service representatives which is bad for business.

While the video plays pictures of huge piles of garbage in public areas, Trump says, “Indians should get jobs to clean up the trash in their country, this is in every square mile of India, and they don't care. They even dump loads of trash and plastics into rivers.”

“We’re pulling all funding from India until they clean it all up. They can clean up their poisonous country and maybe we’ll give them some American work,” says Trump in the video. People laughing can also be heard in the background of the video.

A Facebook user shared the video and wrote, “According to US President no work for Indians in America until we clean up our country.” (Archive)

In a now-deleted tweet, an X user shared the video and wrote, “Disrespectful Comments By Trump For Indians This is what modi has projected himself and Indians. (sic)” The archived version of the tweet can be seen here.

A post making a similar claim can be found here. (Archive)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the viral claim is false. The video is a digital manipulation.

We searched for credible news reports about Trump’s announcement on the new customer service bill targeting Indians and found none. There were also no reports, social media posts or video footage of Donald Trump talking about an executive order in this regard.

We also noticed that the video had many visual and audio discrepancies such as only Trump’s head moving while his body stayed still and the laughter in the background sounding pre-recorded.

The text on the viral video said ‘Sobering Satire’ and the TV channel name was mentioned as ‘Faux News’. This indicated that it may not be a real broadcast, but a digitally manipulated video made for satire.

At the end of the viral video, text appeared on the screen which read, “Performance & Impressions by Michael Clive. Mask by Al. www.MichaelClive.com”

Using the information gathered so far, we found the website of Micheal Clive who calls himself a comedian voice artist and an impression specialist. The website was linked to the YouTube account of Micheal Clive, where he has many videos doing impressions of popular personalities including Trump.

We also found the YouTube channel named Sobering Satire which had the viral video with the title ‘Trump's Newest Executive Order is AWESOME!’ dated January 25, 2025.

The description of the video stated, “This video is Satire. India’s careless pollution is true. Trump Impression & Performance by Clive. AI did NOT Write, Speak or Perform this video. It only masked Clive’s face/performance. More at www.michaelclive.com. Contact me for your voice, writing, comedy and production desires.”

This showed that the channel and video were also linked to Michael Clive and he is the one who made the video.

Therefore, NewsMeter concludes that the viral claim is false. The video is a piece of digitally manipulated media intended as satire.