Topline
President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video taunting his celebrity critics, in the latest instance of him using deepfake imagery to mock his opponents in late-night posts.
US President Donald Trump speaks to the press before he boards Air Force One.
AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
In a post on Truth Social, the president shared a 90-second AI-generated clip between two White House clips touting his successes and showing off the new Air Force One jet acquired from Qatar.
The clip, posted shortly before midnight, depicts the president as a doctor dressed in a white lab coat as a deepfake voice mimicking Trump asks, “Have you or someone you know been diagnosed with TDS?”
TDS is a reference to “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” an insult the president regularly uses to attack his most prominent critics.
The AI-generated Trump then identifies as a doctor, claims he has a “treatment plan” and before playing clips of his supposed “patients,” represented by deepfakes of prominent celebrity critics.
The video shows several prominent critics of the president, including talk show hosts and comedians Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell, actors Robert De Niro, Julia Roberts, Edward Norton, and John Leguizamo.
After the AI-generated celebrities deliver their fake endorsements, the video cuts back to the deepfake Trump, which urges viewers to “turn off fake news” and “just have a Diet Coke like me.”
key background
The president has courted controversy over his frequent AI-generated posts in recent months and has even been forced to delete a few after facing backlash. The biggest of these controversies erupted in April after the president shared a post depicting himself as Jesus Christ, amid his feud with Pope Leo XIV. The post triggered major outcry and even drew criticism from some Republican officials. Trump eventually took down the post but followed it up a few days later with another AI image showing him embraced by Jesus in front of an American flag. Trump has also shared several of the AI-generated images depicting himself and other members of his cabinet swimming in the renovated Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool and presenting the landmark as a sewer under previous Democratic administrations. In May, he also shared an AI-generated caricature surrounded by former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while someone else signs what appears to be a presidential order.
further reading
Trump Attacks Obama, Newsom And Other Democrats In Another Weekend AI Posting Spree (Forbes)
Trump Attacks Biden With AI-Generated Post And Pushes ‘Autopen’ Claims Again (Forbes)