Former President Donald Trump has been quick to take advantage of an unexpected and nefarious benefit offered to politicians in the age of AI. Instead of saying that their quotes were taken out of context when facing unfavorable media coverage, they can now simply claim that the video clips showing them in a bad light were AI-generated.
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“The Hur Report was revealed today! A disaster for Biden, a two tiered standard of justice. Artificial Intelligence was used by them against me in their videos of me. Can’t do that Joe!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday.
Trump was referring to the 32 videos shown by Congressional Democrats during the testimony of Robert Hur, the former Special Counsel who investigated President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. In his report, Hur ultimately recommended that Biden not be charged with a crime, calling him a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” The Special Counsel presented his findings to the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
Hur’s assertion about Biden’s age and memory incensed the president and fellow Democrats, many of whom were eager to point out on Tuesday that his Republican opponent has an extensive record of gaffes and memory lapses.
During Hur’s testimony, House Democrats played more than three dozen videos of Trump in recent years that included embarrassing instances where the former president confused state leaders, mispronounced the United States (United “Shates”), and referenced Barack Obama when he was actually talking about Biden. Other videos didn’t involve Trump making a mistake but rather seemed pick to make him look bad, such as when he yelled “I don’t like mosquitoes!” in 2016.
One of the clips played featured Trump’s inexplicably weird claim about windmills and whales in 2023.
“There has only been one such whale killed off the coast of South Carolina in the last 50 years, but on the other hand, their windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before,” Trump said at a rally last year, a claim that has been firmly denied by whale researchers. “The windmills are driving them crazy. They’re driving the whales, I think, a little batty.”
You can check out the videos played during the House Judiciary Committee at time stamps 36:04, 2:28:08, and 2:54:56.
After the hearing, Trump proceeded to go on the defensive and claim that “Artificial Intelligence was used by [Democrats] against me in their videos of me.” However, Gizmodo confirmed that all 32 videos were real clips taken from the former president’s public appearances and interviews in recent years. Of those, three clips were from Trump’s 2022 deposition in the E. Jean Carroll rape trial.
While it’s unsurprising that Trump, a prolific liar, lied about the clips of him being AI-generated, the incident highlights how increasingly difficult it will be to fact-check claims made by public figures as technology advances.
Click through to check out the video proof of the dozens of gaffes included in the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing.
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