After the U.S. men’s hockey team won the gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics, the White House TikTok account shared celebratory posts. But one of its videos that appears to show player Brady Tkachuk insulting the Canadian men’s hockey team isn’t real.
The White House’s 45-second video showed a clip of an interview with Brady Tkachuk, the Ottawa Senators captain, with brother Matthew Tkachuck. The song “Free Bird” played in the background. After the interview clip, the music intensified and the video continued with a compilation of footage of the team and the winning game shot.
The Feb. 22 video made it look like Brady Tkachuk said, “They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple syrup eating f—-s a lesson,” referring to the Canadian men’s hockey team.
But the original clip of Tkachuk with his brother, from a February 2025 news conference at the 4 Nations Face-Off, shows he did not say that.
The White House TikTok video was edited with artificial intelligence. The TikTok includes a label that says it “contains AI-generated media,” which TikTok may automatically apply to content it identifies as “completely generated or significantly edited with AI.” However, because the White House TikTok includes several video clips, it’s unclear to viewers which part was created with AI.
We contacted the White House for comment but did not receive an immediate reply.
Tkachuk also made it clear he didn’t say what the video claims.
“Well, it’s clearly fake because it’s not my voice and not my lips moving,” Tkachuk said when a reporter asked him about the White House video during a Feb. 26 press scrum in Ottawa. “So, I mean, I’m not in control of any of those accounts and, so I know that those words would never come out of my mouth. So, can’t do anything about it.”
The reporter asked Tkachuk, “Do you like it?” He replied, “I mean, it’s not my voice, not what I was saying. So, yeah. I mean, I would never say that. That’s not who I am. So, yeah, I guess I don’t like that video. And ‘cause that just never would come out of my mouth.”
The White House generated other controversy related to the U.S. men’s hockey team Olympic win after President Donald Trump spoke to them by phone in the locker room after the final Feb. 22 game. During the call, Trump invited the team to the State of the Union address and said that he would also have to invite the U.S. women’s hockey team (who also won the gold medal). Video of the call showed the men’s team laughing at the comment, a moment that generated criticism as being disrespectful to the women athletes’ accomplishments.
We rate the claim that Tkachuk insulted the Canadian men’s hockey team during a news conference Pants on Fire!
