President Donald Trump reposted an AI-generated video showing himself flying a fighter plane emblazoned with “King Trump” and dumping brown sludge onto protesters, in apparent response to No Kings protests that took place on Saturday against his second presidency, reports the Guardian.
The 19-second video, posted by Trump on Saturday night, depicts the president wearing a gold crown and manning a plane whilst dumping bursts of brown matter onto an AI-generated cityscape. The footage shows protesters taking selfie videos as the crowd becomes covered in brown liquid, with the final shot showing demonstrators in what appears to be Times Square being dumped on.
The post represents the latest in a series of AI-generated content shared by the president. On 30 September, Trump posted a deepfake video of Chuck Schumer, the US Senate minority leader, using fabricated audio to make it appear the senator called fellow Democrats “woke pieces of shit”. The video also included a racist depiction of Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic US House leader, dressed in a fake moustache and sombrero set to mariachi music.
The Schumer and Jeffries deepfake videos played on a loop in the White House briefing room for hours on 2 October, according to the Guardian. The clips were intended to reinforce the administration’s claim that Democrats demand health insurance subsidies for unauthorised immigrants as a condition for funding the federal government. The fabricated words put in Schumer’s mouth presented an admission of a far-right conspiracy theory promoted by white supremacists that Democrats want to give government benefits to undocumented immigrants from Latin America as part of a plot to replace white voters.
Vance says AI videos are “funny”
Vice President JD Vance defended the content during a rare appearance in the briefing room, calling it humorous. “I think it’s funny,” he said. “The president’s joking and we’re having a good time. You can negotiate in good faith while also making a little bit of fun at some of the absurdities of the Democrats’ positions, and even poking some fun at the absurdity of themselves.”
Vance made a direct appeal regarding the racist imagery. “I’ll tell Hakeem Jeffries right now, I make the solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop,” he said. “I’ve talked to the president of the United States about that.”
When Jeffries denounced the memes as racist, Vance responded: “I honestly don’t even know what that means. Like, is he a Mexican American that is offended by having a sombrero meme?”
After Jeffries called the first video racist, Trump posted a second clip showing the Democrat calling the fabricated video “disgusting”, again adding the sombrero and moustache to the congressman with a mariachi band featuring four versions of Trump playing in the background.
The Republican Party has increasingly embraced AI-generated content. On Friday, the social media account for Senate Republicans posted an attack advert against Schumer using a deepfake depiction of the senator saying “every day gets better for us” amid the federal government shutdown. The video included a small disclaimer labelling it as AI-generated.
Millions take part in demonstration
No Kings protests took place across all 50 states on Saturday, with millions demonstrating against the Trump administration carrying signs including “sorry for being weird, this is my first dictatorship” and “No Kings Since 1776”, referencing the year the US declared independence from the United Kingdom.
Trump disputed the “king” characterisation in an interview before the protests. “They say they’re referring to me as a king,” he said. “I’m not a king.”
The president adopted a harsher tone in comments to reporters on Sunday. “I’m not a king. I work my ass off to make our country great. That’s all it is. I’m not a king at all,” he said, describing the protests as “a joke”.
Trump continued his criticism of the demonstrations. “The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective, and the people were whacked out,” he said. “When you look at those people, they are not representative of the people of our country.”
Trump previously faced criticism for using deepfake videos and AI-generated images during his winning 2024 presidential campaign.
