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President Donald Trump shared a bizarre, demeaning, racist AI-generated parody video featuring House Minority Leader (D-N.Y.) Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) earlier this week. He then doubled down and shared another offensive clip on Tuesday night, just before the government entered a shutdown. And people online are flat-out concerned that we’re all becoming numb to the president’s antics.
Trump met with Jeffries and Schumer in a high-stakes private meeting at the White House on Monday, but the top Democrats, the president and GOP leaders who were all present at the meeting failed to reach an agreement on health care funding to prevent the government from shutting down.
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Democrats have been pushing for an extension to the Affordable Care Act tax credits passed during the COVID-19 pandemic to subsidize health care. Those tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year, which would result in skyrocketing monthly insurance premiums for millions of Americans. The federal government entered a shutdown early Wednesday morning.
Schumer told reporters after the meeting with Trump that there were still “very large differences,” between them, but that they all had “candid, frank discussions” and that the president was “really listening to us.”
But hours after the crucial meeting at the White House, Trump posted on social media an AI-generated video depicting Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache as mariachi music played in the background. A doctored audio of Schumer depicted the senator speaking about immigrants, Latinos, Black people and trans people in a demeaning, stereotypical and derogatory manner.
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“Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left because of all of our woke, trans bullshit. Not even Black people want to vote for us anymore — even Latinos hate us. So we need new voters,” the fake audio of Schumer said, before it referenced Republicans’ false claim that Democrats are trying to give free health care to undocumented immigrants. “And we give all these illegal aliens health care, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us.”
“They can’t even speak English, so they won’t realize we’re just a bunch of woke pieces of shit. At least, for a while until they learn English and realize they hate us too,” the faux Schumer continued in the AI video.
Jeffries has since responded to the video, calling it “disgusting” in an appearance on Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.”
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He also sent a message to Trump from Capitol Hill demanding in front of cameras that the president confront him directly next time.
“Don’t cop out through a racist and fake AI video,” he said. “When I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face. Say it to my face.”
But Trump had since doubled down. On Tuesday night he shared yet another AI-generated video, which again featured Jeffries with a mustache and sombrero — but this time with the addition of Trump’s face superimposed on members of a mariachi band playing music behind the representative.
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Some Trump critics on X, formerly Twitter, have since called out the fact that such behavior was beneath the office of the president — especially as the country was bracing for a government shutdown. And people pointed out that while Trump has a history of sharing AI-generated videos to attack his opponents, it doesn’t mean it should be normalized.
“This vulgar AI video is not from a disturbed 12-year-old, it’s from the president of the United States,” one X user wrote in response to Trump’s first AI-generated video of Jeffries and Schumer posted on Monday. “After his med bed video, the American people can no longer ignore the stunning mental decline of Trump just over the last few days.”
“How bad is America right now? This is the level of discourse coming from the President of the United States,” wrote another.
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“He’s a national embarrassment,” added the Republicans against Trump account.
Conor M. Dowling, professor of political science at University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, believes that there “has been some desensitization” to people seeing the president share such content on social media.
“Not only to the president sharing such content, but to such content in general,” he told HuffPost.
And as it relates to the video Trump posted of Schumer and Jeffries on Monday, Dowling said it appeared that Trump was intending to “communicate that the Democrats are interested in spending health care subsidies on ‘illegal aliens’ — an intentionally derogatory and, in this case, misleading phrase.”
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“And so, while the video is offensive to some, what’s potentially just as worrying is that it’s also misinforming the public about what the debate between Democrats and Republicans is truly over,” he said.
Grant Reeher, professor of political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said that he believes what’s been new in recent years about the type of content Trump shares on social media is the fact that it’s “coming out under the president’s name, directly.”
“In earlier times, such things as this video — which some will find insulting, others aggravating, and others funny — were done by other people who could not be associated with the president himself (or a House Speaker, or a Senate leader),” he told HuffPost. “That was out of belief that it was important for a president to remain ‘presidential.’ To conduct himself with a certain decorum of civility, restraint, and respect.”
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“But that has never been this president’s M.O. — he blew that up a long time ago,” he continued. “Is this video worse than Trump making fun of a disabled person? Worse than encouraging security at a rally to beat up a heckler? At this point, that’s a tired discussion.”
“This guy is different, and doesn’t give a damn about the tradition of the presidency. And that’s what some like about him,” he added.
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Overall, Dowling said that what he finds most concerning about the AI video debacle as someone who researches and teaches about government and politics is “the increased prevalence of AI-created videos that are, in many instances, also misleading or misinforming the public.”
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“While it can be difficult to sort out genuine reporting from AI-generated content, it’s important for the public to be aware that a good portion of the AI-generated content is misleading, at best, and often meant to intentionally misinform,” he later warned. “Therefore, it’s important to be able to try to identify it and call it out.”