A rumor that circulated online in video form in June 2025 claimed Fox News added inauthentic cheering sounds to its coverage of the moments leading up to U.S. President Donald Trump's speech honoring the Army's 250th anniversary in Washington, purportedly to make his entrance appear more impressive. The speech followed a military parade held on June 14.
For example, on June 15, a TikTok user posted a video (archived) titled "PBS vs FOX," allegedly comparing broadcasts by PBS News and Fox News, and claiming that the latter added "fake cheering." The video received more than 1.3 million views. A Threads user's post (archived) with the same video — including the TikTok user's watermark — received over 280,000 views. That was reposted (archived) by another Threads user and received over 3.1 million views.
In other words, users were virally sharing the rumor, including on Bluesky (archived), Facebook, Instagram (archived), Reddit (archived), Threads (archived), TikTok (archived) and X (archived) and YouTube (archived).
However, Snopes determined this rumor claiming Fox News deceptively added inauthentic cheering sounds to its broadcast was false. Users' posts lacked crucial context, primarily the fact that PBS News and other prominent media outlets also hosted YouTube videos featuring the loud cheers.
By email, a Fox News spokesperson specified that their networks utilized two audio-video feeds for the event, including a "network pool feed" that featured less audible cheering and another feed labeled "America250," which was the source of the audio with the louder cheering. Speaking about the rumor, the spokesperson said, "This is a blatantly false smear and nothing was altered whatsoever."
Ella Richardson, the director of communications for "PBS News Hour," said PBS News also broadcast from both feeds. She added, "Neither feed was altered in any way, other than the addition of our PBS News bug, which is added to all our live streams."
Additionally, Snopes emailed the America250 organization and the White House asking for confirmation that the officials managing the America250 feed did not manipulate the audio themselves. No matter the answer, it would still be false to claim Fox News added inauthentic cheering sounds. We will update this story if we receive more information.
Investigating the rumor
The video comparison users shared pitted a PBS News broadcast using what the Fox News spokesperson referenced as the "network pool feed" against the "America250" feed from FOX 5 New York — not to be confused with the nationally-broadcast U.S. cable news network Fox News. Even so, users commenting under social media posts submitted remarks specifically about Fox News. (The same moment users shared begins in the FOX 5 New York YouTube video beginning at about the 4:40:52 mark.)
According to the Internet Archive's TV News Archive website, Fox News, the cable TV network, didn't broadcast the "America250" feed live. Instead, in that specific moment, Fox News aired the quieter "network pool feed" — the same feed depicted in the viral video as PBS News' broadcast.
Further, an online search found two previously-live PBS News videos on the PBS NewsHour YouTube channel — one from the "network pool feed" and the other from the "America250" feed. One PBS News video depicted the same clip users shared that lacked the audible cheering sounds. The second PBS News video featured the loud cheering, which begins at the 2:14:07 mark below:
Other local and national news media outlets' YouTube channels also hosted the "America250" feed featuring the cheering noises, including for example ABC News, ABC News 4, The Associated Press, C-SPAN, FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, Reuters and WUSA9.
A related false rumor shared on Threads (archived), for example, claimed Fox News "manipulated" audio of the crowd singing "Happy Birthday" to Trump just after his speech. However, a Fox News spokesperson explained that the main network broadcast the network pool feed, which captured the singing in a more audible manner. PBS News broadcast the same audio in which "Happy Birthday" was audible, specifically at the 8:30 mark in this video.
About America250
According to America250.org, in 2016, Congress established the nonpartisan initiative America250 — formally the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission — "to plan and orchestrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States." The anniversary takes place on July 4, 2026, 250 years after July 4, 1776.
The commission's website (archived) features a leadership team showing members from both the Democratic and Republican parties. The White House website (archived) also hosts a page about its White House Salute to America 250 Task Force.
For further reading, a previous fact check examined a rumor that a video showed Trump "waving at no one."