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Over the weekend, the president of the United States posted an A.I.-generated video of himself making a major announcement. The post, which was made on TruthSocial, prompted an online furor among those familiar with conspiracy theories, because it promoted a particularly fringe one, even by the standards of an administration that has pushed anti-vaccine paranoia onto the public and advanced widespread falsehoods about a presidential election. The theory, which revolves around something called a “medbed,” is pulled from the strangest, most paranoid corners of the conspiracy world—not something one of the most powerful world leaders should be tapped into. Let’s get into it.
So, what exactly happened?
At 10:19 p.m. Saturday, Donald Trump’s account posted a 37-second video on TruthSocial. The video, which was A.I.-generated, was meant to look like a Fox News segment announcing the arrival of a medbed hospital—a kind of fantastical facility that uses advanced technology to more or less magically treat everything that ails the human body. Remarkably, the video included an A.I.-generated video of Trump himself talking; the promotion of this video from his account seemed, bafflingly, to make the announcement look legitimate. Trump has never posted anything like this before—an A.I.-generated version of him announcing news, giving life to a fringe conspiracy theory—on any of his accounts.
The next morning, the account deleted the post.
What did the video say?
It announced “the launch of America’s first medbed hospital and a national medbed card for every citizen.” It showed B-roll shots of gleaming hospitals with futuristic-looking technology. An A.I.-generated version of Trump, speaking with low energy from the Resolute Desk, says, “Every American will soon receive their own medbed card. With it, you’ll have guaranteed access to our new hospitals, led by the top doctors in the nation, equipped with the most advanced technology in the world. These facilities are safe, modern, and designed to return every citizen to full health and strength. This is the beginning of a new era in American health care.” An A.I.-generated version of Lara Trump, speaking as a Fox News host, then clarifies that there will first only be a limited number available and that registration details would be announced soon. Trump’s post came without commentary—just the video.
OK, then. What is a medbed?
To be abundantly clear, medbeds are not real. But per the conspiracy theory, a medbed is a kind of extremely advanced technology capable of healing the human body of literally everything, including natural aging. They’re often thought of as pods of some kind. In the telling of the conspiracy theory, it may have an alien origin or a mystical origin or just be breathtakingly advanced science. A medbed has no limits to what it can do.
My goodness. Where does that come from?
Mostly, it comes from the QAnon world. For years, Q influencers have hyped it as a way to promise a kind of golden future on the other side of their revolution. Medbeds are one of the many exciting promises that were supposed to come after the Storm, the long-promised mass roundup of the evil cabal members at the center of the QAnon conspiracy theories. At times, medbeds have also been useful for connected conspiracy theories, explaining how some figure—an assassinated John F. Kennedy, for example—who should have died long ago is still alive.
In the theory, how is it this technology exists but has not been in use?
Well, as with so many conspiracy theories, there are variations. Some people believe that medbed technology is in development but still somewhat theoretical, or that it’s already here but being suppressed by evil actors—sometimes the cabal, sometimes the pharmaceutical industry, keen on keeping people sick. Other variations have it that the elite have had access to medbeds for years and have hoarded the technology for themselves. But some in the community believe that under Trump, it’s being quietly tested and rolled out for the public. Some QAnon influencers have even claimed to have firsthand or secondhand experience with medbeds.
Uh-oh. Does that mean there’s a grift element?
Unfortunately, yes. As the Daily Beast has detailed, some companies sell devices they describe as medbeds, invoking some kind of New Age healing promises or other nonsense science. These devices are advertised as having the ability to do some pretty miraculous things, including heal terminal cancer. Some cost tens of thousands of dollars. There are also medbed clinics, where people can pay to receive quack treatments from people who claim to have working medbeds.
Oh no.
Right. Medbed theories, at their core, are deeply depressing, because they offer false hope to people with pretty desperate situations. At their least harmful, they’re a way of making healthy people excited about some kind of futuristic golden age without suffering. At their most harmful, they encourage desperate people with debilitating or life-threatening medical conditions to turn away from legitimate medical science and possibly spend fortunes on useless woo-woo junk.
Why on earth would Trump promote this?
It’s unclear. Trump does often promote QAnon content, but it typically doesn’t involve anything as fantastical as medbeds. It’s possible it was someone else who had control of his account, but we don’t know. Sometimes, Trump appears to enjoy what he sees as hyperbolic, semi-trolling claims of his greatness, as when he reposts videos of him as a muscular wrestler or some other heroic figure; it’s possible he or someone with account access thought this was harmless fun. If so, he underestimated the level at which conspiracy theorists actually buy into these ideas. It’s also possible that he wants to continue to string along his QAnon supporters, some of whom are growing restless, particularly after Trump failed to expose Democrats and other “deep state” actors with Epstein’s “client list.”
Do we know where this video came from?
No, but it’s certainly not a Trump original. It’s unclear how Trump himself stumbled upon this video, but one journalist found it on a couple of scam Instagram pages. On TruthSocial, it was shared by at least one QAnon account before Trump posted it.
How has the right-wing-conspiracy-theory world responded to the video?
Most of the community seems aware that it’s A.I. and aren’t being fooled into thinking it’s a genuine Fox News segment. (That being said: Many people—often older people—do have a hard time discerning what is real and what is not with A.I.-generated content, so it is very likely that some people will encounter this video on Facebook and take it at face value.) But, judging by posts on TruthSocial and activity from known QAnon accounts on X, some see the post as a message from Trump that medbeds are indeed on their way, possibly thanks to advances from A.I. technology. Others have other, convoluted theories about some play he’s making related to A.I. Perhaps predictably, others have been using the post to boost their own scams, latching onto the moment to peddle their medbed products or even try to sell the medbed cards promised in the video.
So this post may actually cause sick people real harm?
It does seem very possible, yes. Trump deleted the video, limiting its harm to some degree, but some will choose to see the deletion not as a retraction but as part of the secret form of communication he uses for his most devoted followers. Trump has a huge audience, and he’s a near-messianic figure for some of these people; even if the medbed post was meant as a joke—and nothing he has said or written has indicated it was—people will almost certainly latch onto this post as a coded message, telling them to turn away from the corrupt medical community and hold out for something better. For people facing life-threatening illnesses, such false hope can be deadly.