Claim: On his three-day visit to the US in 2019, former premier Imran Khan was not received by any American official, forcing him to travel by metro train inside the US.
Fact: Mary-Kate Fisher, then Acting Chief of Protocol of the US, was one of the officials to receive Khan on his three-day visit to the US in 2019. News reports suggest that the decision to travel by metro was most likely to make the trip as inexpensive as possible.
On 2 March 2025, a post on X shared a video of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. The video initially shows a Qatar Airways plane on a runway, which then cuts to a scene showing Khan meeting various officials and travelling on a bus with them. The caption of the post reads as follows in Urdu:
عمران خان 3روزہ دورے پر جب امریکا پہنچا تو کوئی امریکن آفشل اسکو لینے تک نہ آیا یہاں تک کہ اسکو مجبورا میٹرو ٹرین سے پہنچنا پڑا کشمیر پلیٹ میں رکھ کر دے آیا”
“🤔🤔🤔 آج تک دنیا حیران ھے کہ یہ گیا کیوں تھا؟
According to Google Translate, this reads as follows in English:
“When Imran Khan arrived in America on a 3-day visit, no American official came to pick him up, until he was forced to reach by metro train and put Kashmir on a plate.
To this day, the world is still wondering, why did he go there?🤔🤔🤔”
Fact or Fiction?
Conducting a reverse-image search of keyframes of the video, we found the earliest instance of it from 21 July 2021. It had been posted by the official X (formerly Twitter) account of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). The caption of the post reads as follows:
“And the moment that everyone has been waiting for is here; Prime Minister Khan lands in US for a 3-day official visit upon POTUS @realDonaldTrump‘s invitation. Foreign Minister @SMQureshiPTI who is already in US receives PM Khan. On way to Pakistan House now!
#PMIKVisitingUS”
Searching for “Imran Khan 3-day visit US” on Google, we were led to an article in Dawn with a picture similar to the keyframes of the video in the claim. The picture shows many of the same officials that we see in the video, including former Minister of Foreign Affairs Shah Mahmood Qureshi and former Pakistani Ambassador to the US Asad Majeed Khan. They are visibly dressed in the same attire while travelling in a bus with the former premier.
According to the article, the former premier landed in the US on a three-day “official working visit” on 20 July 2019. This visit culminated in Khan meeting US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on 22 July 2019.
Moreover, our reverse-search yielded a post on X that claimed the Acting Chief of Protocol of the US Mary-Kate Fisher was present when Khan landed. A screenshot of the post is shown below:
Source: X
To confirm if this woman was indeed Mary-Kate Fisher, a Google search for her name led to a picture of Fisher on Wikipedia. The facial features of the woman in the video in the claim matched those of the woman we see in the picture. Another search on Google for “Mary-Kate Fisher Imran Khan 3-day visit”, led to a special issue of the newsletter of the Embassy of Pakistan in the US, dated July 2019, which described the former Prime Minister’s visit to the US. On page 9, it stated that Khan was “welcomed at the airport by Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and US Acting Chief of Protocol, Mary-Kate Fisher”.
Hence, the claim that no US official came to receive Khan when he landed in the US for his three-day working visit is false. Then Acting Chief of Protocol of the US Mary-Kate Fisher did receive Khan at the airport.
In addition, the claim stated that Khan’s lack of reception by US officials at the airport forced him to travel by metro bus after his flight. However, news reports suggest the reason he opted to travel via metro was most likely to cut travel expenditures. According to the article in Dawn, the former Prime Minister chose to travel via a commercial Qatar Airways flight for his three-day visit in an effort to “save taxpayer money”. The article also states that the government promised “the entire trip will cost a total $60,000 to the exchequer—significantly less than the much higher expenditures allegedly incurred by past chief executives.” This was corroborated by other sources as well, like The Express Tribune and The EurAsian Times. Hence, the decision to travel by metro bus was likely taken in line with other austerity measures like opting for a commercial flight.
Virality
On X, the post in the claim has amassed 134.8 K views. It was shared here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: The claim that no US official received former Prime Minister Imran Khan when he landed in the US for his 3-day working visit is false. Then Acting Chief of Protocol of the US Mary-Kate Fisher did welcome Khan at the airport. Moreover, Khan travelled by metro most likely as a measure to keep expenditures to a minimum and not because he was forced as no US officials had received him at the airport.
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Background image in cover photo: DAWN
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