St. Paul, Minnesota (KTTC) — Minnesota's elected officials responded Thursday to a social media post made by President Donald Trump this week ahead of the federal shutdown.
The video generated by AI shows House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) wearing a fake mustache and Sombrero. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) is also in a deepfake clip about true social. This includes Schumer's dubbed audio making lightly parody comments about the Democrats.
The reference is about Republican topics about closures that Democrats claim “smashing America to stop America to give illegal immigrants free medical care.”
Jeffries called out this post that includes Mariachi music, prejudice and racist.
“I'm not going to stick to the president's unstable behavior in terms of memes and AI deepfark video,” Jeffries said. “The broader problem is that it's deep and unsafe, and this is a serious moment. We need to reopen the government.”
Vice President JD Vance supports the president's online actions.
“Yeah, I think it's funny,” Vance said. “We have a good time with the president's jokes and we can negotiate in good faith, enjoying a bit of some of the absurdities of the Democratic position.
Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate, said there was nothing interesting about the video or the current situation.
“It's ridiculous to me that we send memes, we're laughing at people, we're full of people, we have programs that are being cut and these people are still receiving their pay,” Waltz said.
When asked about the president's post, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said that Trump likes to share memes and videos, “It's very refreshing to say that we have a very open and honest president.”
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