A viral video on social media claims to show the U.S. Senator and Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha Chilukuri, greet party delegates, with false claims that chants of "India, India" can be heard in the background.
BOOM found that the audio of the chants were overlaid onto the original video of Vance and his wife walking in to greet the attendees at the opening day of the Republican National Convention held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
On July 15, former US President and Republican candidate Donald Trump picked Vance as his running mate at the RNC convention. The 2024 U.S. national election is scheduled to be held in November.
Social media users have claimed that the chants were directed at Vance's Indian-origin wife, Chilukuri, who accompanied him while greeting the party delegates.
“‘India India’ chants as JD Vance brings soon to be second lady Usha Chilukuri into the RNC convention. The new Republican Party. It just keeps getting better,” an X user wrote.
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BOOM found that the video was edited to include the "India India" chants, which were not present in the original footage.
The actual video, live-streamed by Forbes and uploaded on YouTube, shows Vance and his wife, Usha, greeting attendees and supporters at the convention from timestamp 3:00:50 to 3:05:50.
The background music was performed live by the Nashville-based country music band Sixwire, who played "filler music" for almost 45 minutes due to a teleprompter malfunction, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Immediately after the greeting, chants of "USA USA" can be heard at timestamp 3:05:52.
Usha, Vance's wife, is a corporate lawyer who was previously a registered Democrat. She is the daughter of Indian immigrants, Krish and Lakshmi Chilukuri, originally from Andhra Pradesh who later moved to California.