Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video of himself dumping feces from a fighter jet onto protestors, following US-wide demonstrations against his administration. This latest - but not uncommon - use of AI from the Trump administration has drawn widespread criticism.
ADVERTISEMENT
Millions of Americans marched against Trump’s administration this weekend, with the “No Kings” march opposing the president’s “authoritarian power grab.”
The 18 October protest, the third mass mobilisation since Trump's return to the White House, drew nearly 7 million people across all 50 states according to organisers. This figure would make it the largest single-day mobilisation against a US president in modern history.
Several Hollywood figures like Jimmy Kimmel, Spike Lee, Robert De Niro and Glenn Close joined the protestors and expressed their opposition to Trump’s presidency and the growing levels of authoritarianism.
Oscar-winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis posted a photo of a “no parking” sign with duct tape covering letters to read “no king.”
She wrote: “In this world of abundance and BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST, it doesn’t matter if this was the MOST people ever turning out in protest, it just matters that we SHOWED UP, STOOD UP, said what we THINK and FEEL and now the HARD work. We have a YEAR to send a real MESSAGE at the BALLOT BOX which is our AMERICAN VOICE, and so, let’s get &$@KING BUSY!”
Instead of presidentially reacting to the peaceful opposition, Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video on Truth Social which showed him wearing a crown, flying a “KING TRUMP” fighter jet, and proceeding to bomb crowds of protestors with brown sludge which clearly looked like feces. All this to Kenny Loggins’ 1986 hit song ‘Danger Zone’ - an apparent reference to the Top Gun movies – and despite the fact that Trump insisted that he is “not a king” on Fox Business ahead of the protests.
The scatological video was shared on the president’s personal and government social media accounts, and joined by Vice President JD Vance’s very own AI video of Trump wearing a crown and cape.
This is not the first time that Trump and his allies have trolled their opponents by posting AI-generated images or ramped up threats using AI – one of the latest being his “Chipocalypse Now” image, which led Euronews Culture to ask: “Is the Trump administration culturally illiterate?”
However, this latest post has been widely blasted online as one of the most “pathetic” attempts to dismiss Trump’s critics.
Many expressed shock over the way the video shows disdain for people exercising their right to protest and the “insulting” dismissal of democracy – as if to prove the protestors’ point.
Social media users accused Trump of having “the maturity and decorum of a 12-year-old boy”, while others commented: “Can’t believe that’s a president of a country.”
Many posts pointed out that Trump’s “childish” and “disgusting” AI post revealed a transparent representation of his genuine feelings toward the American people. "It tells you everything you need to know about what he thinks about the people of America who are, in fact, America," one person commented, while another added: "Him taking a dump on the country is the most honest thing he's ever posted.”
Check out some of the reactions below:
Reacting to the post, former Secretary of State and Trump's Democratic opponent in 2016, Hillary Clinton, wrote: "He's definitely not mad that 7 million Americans came out to protest him yesterday...”
Trump and his social media team regularly utilise AI. Trump has been portrayed as the Pope, a suspiciously jacked Jedi and even Superman.
The use of AI videos and memes is his way of engaging in “memetic warfare” - a term employed by Kurt Sengul, a researcher at Macquarie University in Australia.
Sengul recently spoke to Euronews Culture about Trump’s use of generative AI, which allows the creation of an ecosystem where nothing appears to be serious. Trump’s stance is that if you get upset, it’s because you are “humourless and can’t take a joke,” according to Sengul.
Humour notwithstanding, the outrage at Trump’s recent video seems to be uniting those who affirm that “This is far beneath the Presidency.”
