Shortly before midnight on Thursday, government closures were underway, with President Donald Trump posting a video on his own truth social in an oval office, appearing to be throwing one of his red hats at someone's head as the villagers' “YMCA” performed. Trump points and laughs.
The scenes were fictional. It was a clearly manipulated video intended to play a recent meeting between Trump and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries. Just a few days ago, Trump posted a modified video of Jeffries and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer.
Democrats denounced Trump. His allies laughed.
Trump's embrace of synthetic media has proven effective at attracting attention when the politics that pervades the memes explodes on social media, whether they love or hate it. AI videos have begun to enter that world, but rarely politicians are more prolific to post than Trump.
Trump's generative AI media sharing appears to be speeding up. Since returning to the White House in January, he has posted dozens of synthetic media on his true social accounts, including AI-generated images and deep-fark videos, according to NBC's news review. Many, if not most, posts, appear to be taken from other people who first posted on the internet.
“They're going viral. They're getting attention. They're this memeticization of politics,” said Valerie Worthschoughter, a fellow at a nonpartisan Brookings agency that studies the use of AI in politics. “They're a little weird, but they're shared. They get their eyes.”
The president has increasingly embraced fake images and videos (which appear to be generated by AI) to laugh and provoke his political rivals, whilst inflating his image. He also immersed himself in hot topics of national conversation, such as changing the cracker barrel logo, using manipulated and AI-generated media, including changing the cracker barrel logo, and dropped hints on how to take government policies on immigration and healthcare.
The AI content of Trump's description falls into the spectrum, from images that clearly fake myths of Trump standing next to a lion roaring to fake videos of Trump throwing his hat at Jeffries, to those satisfied he is likely to mislead people.
Trump posted four videos over four days as the government shutdown is scheduled to be drugged next week. It was thought that this was created or modified with technology that included an alternative version of “(don't be afraid) The Repper” from the Blue Oyster Cult.
The post has a huge online audience. They go out to Trump's 10.8 million followers on the true society. And many posts will be shared later with Trump's other social media accounts, including X, who he has 109.5 million followers. According to X's data, some of the AI posts get tens of millions of views and create incentives to post more of them.
The use of generated AI by Trump and his staff has skyrocketed along with the widespread rise of technology on the Internet. Millions of people have downloaded AI engines such as Google Gemini and Openai's ChatGPT, creating waves of synthetic content for social media. Trump has established himself as an ally in the AI industry, inviting high-tech CEOs to the White House and releasing the “AI Action Plan” to promote development. Also, AI-Forward Company stocks are booming, pushing the stock market to its all-time high this week.
And it's a generation AI continues to develop rapidly, with Openai's Sora 2 release this week placing advanced video generation on millions of smartphones.
The White House said it supports Trump sharing AI-generated content.
“President Trump is the most memetic communicator in presidential history, and his clever use of social media was key to promoting America's great moves at the forefront of American politics and society.”
The Trump administration has fully embraced the technology as part of its second term communications strategy. Federal agencies frequently post memes and AI images on social media to play on Trump's base, including depictions of a March cartoon that appears to make ock-lol at crying migrants who have been arrested.
“He's incredibly transparent, as you all know,” White House spokesman Caroline Leavitt said at a briefing Wednesday.
“I hear from him directly on social media. He likes to share memes. He likes to share videos,” she said. “He likes to repost things he sees others posting on social media. I think it's very refreshing to have a president who is so open, honest and has his own personalities directly. [Social]you hear directly from the President of the United States. ”
AI experts said Trump is creating an alternative world for his followers.
Samuel Woolley, an associate professor of communications at the University of Pittsburgh, said generative AI images and videos can “bend reality” for those who consume them.
“They are fulfilling the goal of individuals and organizations who want to create stories that replace scientific facts or create brand new versions of what people should pay attention to and worthy of attention,” he said.
Some of the images and videos like Trump, which dominated Gaza in February, have attracted a wide range of attention, while others have received little notice in a frenzy of information environment. Trump also posts a bunch of unchanged images and videos, along with written messages, sometimes in all cap styles of his signature.
In May, Trump shrugged questions about his AI-generated image as Pope. The images appeared on his true social and White House X accounts, with Trump saying he had nothing to do with it.
“Can't they joke?” Trump said at the time, referring to Catholics who said they were upset with the image. “Give me a break. It's just someone enjoyed it. It's okay. You have to have a bit of fun, right?”
The White House also dismissed the idea that internet jokes were somehow under the office and posted to X in July.
Of the dozens of generated AI posts examined by NBC News, about a third were video and the rest were still images. Another dozen posts included images and videos that appeared to use old, crude, rough shapes of digital manipulation rather than artificial intelligence.
Like his image as a Trump, it is not always clear who created the media or which software he used, but some of the images and videos contain credits. Of the dozens of media, about two-thirds were posted directly to Trump's account, while the rest were reposting content from another account.
This tally does not include posts from other accounts, such as the White House X account. This year, I posted portraits created by Ai as Trump as King, Superman, and as a “Star Wars” character.
Some contain complete falsehood. Last weekend, Trump posted a deep shelter for himself and his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, promoting conspiracy theories about “Medbeds,” a fake health treatment popular among several online communities. The video was later deleted.
Leavitt defended the video, saying, “I think the president saw the video and posted it and then dropped it. And he has the right to do it. That's his social media.”
Trump often employs AI to attack political rivals. The deepfake of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, shared by Trump on September 8, uses a forged voice to portray Pelosi, who admits crime. The September 3 post presented the Illinois Democratic government and former Republican New Jersey governor Chris Christie as sumo wrestlers. In a July post, Sen. Adam Schiff of D-Calif was handcuffed, but Gavin Gov of California. Gavin Newsom is eligible for three posts.
Recently, Newsom, who accepted the meme post, fought back on Tuesday, with his press conference posting an AI-generated video to X Attack Vance.
In a Trump post on Trump Social starting July 20, AI used AI to arrest former President Barack Obama and mistakenly show FBI agents causing protests. The video appeared near the height of the Magazine Backlash on Jeffrey Epstein's files, drawing criticism from Obama spokesman who called Trump's allegations that Obama claimed the 2016 and 2020 elections “strange” and “idiotious.”
For Trump, embracing new media is an old skill, shaking in New York tabloid newspapers in the 1980s, and still shaking in new times through the use of Twitter.
“He's a Master Media Manipulator and I'm coming back,” said Michelle Amazon, an associate professor of mass communication at Boston University, who studies misinformation. “What he's doing is dominating on social media, television and other news outlets, giving the illusion that this is where it is now.”
Amazeen said that AI-generated media may not be as popular as it looks. This year's survey, conducted by Ipsos, a voting company at BU's Research Center, found that 84% of respondents should be clearly labelled with such content, while 81% said they should need a social media app to remove fraudulent deepfakes. (Trump's AI posts are rarely labeled that way.)
“There are a lot of people who are getting very off because they tuned,” she said.
Some of Trump's AI posts are related to serious policy topics. On Saturday in August, Trump posted a fictional image on the famous bell on the New York Stock Exchange. The company appears to be unavailable, but the post appeared to refer to a proposal to sell mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's government stakes under a new entity in the Ticker Symbol Magazine. No sales have occurred, but it remains a topic of discussion.
On Saturday in September, Trump also urged news reports by posting an image of a cartoon depicting him firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Daniel Schiff, an assistant professor of technology policy at Puldieu University, said that sometimes Trump's intentions were unclear.
“Is this something that happens? Or maybe they just want to happen?” he said. “It could be a gray area.”
Animals created by AI can sometimes appear on card feed, including at least three lions and one pigeon. Also, posts created by at least four AIs contain references to long-term canon conspiracy theory.
But Trump is the hero of his true social feed. When generative AI or other synthetic media appeared in his feed, it often included fictional depictions of Trump in some way: Trump as Paul Vaulter, Trump as a SWAT team member, Trump as a train conductor, Trump as an orchestra conductor, Trump as a character in the film “Apocalypse Now.”
Schiff, who helped run a database of political deepfakes and has no connection to the California Senator, said it is noteworthy to see the generative AI used to create so much “positive” content after researchers and journalists focused on deepfake fraud and deepfake political attacks. He also said Trump is the most widely popular subject among fans and critics for forging AI across the internet.
“Multiple deepfakes are about Trump,” he said, excluding sexual deepfakes.
