No, Republican VP Candidate JD Vance Was Not Welcomed With ‘India’ Chants at RNC

The original video shows JD Vance arriving while the band played a cover of Merle Haggard's 'America First.'

A video of US politician and Republican senator of Ohio JD Vance, who was recently announced to be former US President Donald Trump's running mate for the 2024 US Presidential elections, is being shared on social media.

• The video shows Vance arriving with his Indian-origin wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Tennessee.

The claim: Those sharing the video claimed that people raised "India! India!" chants when the Vances arrived.

At the time of writing this report, this post by (formerly Twitter) user Jaun America was viewed over 90,000 times.

(Archives of more claims on social media can be seen here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: No, the video is altered. All available footage from the convention shows Vance arriving to a song by the country band Sixwire.

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How did we find out the truth?: We conducted a YouTube search with the keywords 'JD Vance RNC', which showed us several videos and livestreams on verified channels of American news organisations.

• One of these live streams was a nearly nine-hour-long video by the Associated Press of the first day of the RNC.

• At the 2:51:20 timestamp, Vance is seen walking with his wife, shaking hands with all the people around him.

• During his arrival, we heard the band Sixwire performing a cover of Merle Haggard's 'America First' at the event.

• We came across a shorter video of the Vances arriving on The Wall Street Journal's YouTube channel.

• Similar visuals to the viral video can be seen 30 seconds into this video, which also did not have any audio of people raising "India!" chants.

Conclusion: An altered video of the RNC has gone viral with the false claim that people chanted "India! India!" when JD and Usha Vance arrived.

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