Trump’s AI Deployment Amplifies Disinformation and Political Division

Donald Trump’s escalation of AI in his political messaging is raising significant concerns among experts, who view it not as a harmless campaign evolution but as a sophisticated propaganda machine designed to distort reality and deepen social divides.

Since late 2022, the former president and current second-term officeholder has shared at least 62 AI-generated images and videos on his Truth Social platform, according to the New York Times. These posts often depict Trump in fantastical roles—from “King Trump” piloting fighter jets to “Pope Trump” and “Trump the Conqueror.”

While some dismiss these posts as mere entertainment, experts suggest they represent a calculated strategy to strengthen Trump’s personality cult while circumventing traditional media gatekeepers.

“In his first administration, he used Twitter in a way no president had,” explained Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the White House Transition Project, in a PBS interview. “What they do in this administration is taking it further, as you’ve had an increase in what can be done online.”

One particularly controversial AI-generated video shared by Trump showed him as a fighter pilot dropping excrement on protesters at a fictional “No Kings” rally. House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the post as “satire,” claiming Trump was “using humor to make a point.” Critics, however, warn that such content normalizes digitally manufactured hate materials as acceptable political communication.

“The use of memes and the use of what we used to consider stuff that would exist in the worlds of Reddit, now has drifted into the discourse of elected leaders,” said Bret Schafer, senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, in comments to Time magazine. “I don’t think it is good for our kind of political discourse in this country to adopt the online style of podcasters, vloggers, and partisan communicators.”

More troubling still is how the technology is being weaponized against political opponents, often with racist undertones. One AI-generated post depicted House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a fake mustache and sombrero—content that civil rights organizations promptly condemned as “openly racist.” Another manipulated video used AI voice replacement to make Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer appear to mock his own party.

“Trump is the most notable person sharing this content, but this is really becoming an international, new form of political messaging,” noted Henry Ajder, AI expert and founder of Latent Space Advisory. “It’s designed to go viral, it’s clearly fake, it’s got this absurdist kind of tone to it. But there’s often still some kind of messaging in there.”

The viral nature of these posts serves a strategic purpose. As Adrian Shahbaz, vice president of research and analysis at Freedom House, explains: “The more ridiculous the photo or video, the more likely it is to dominate our news feeds. A controversial post gets shared by people who enjoyed it and people outraged by it. That’s twice the shares.”

A particularly controversial example was an AI-generated video labeled “Trump Gaza,” which reimagined the war-torn Palestinian territory as a luxury resort featuring golden Trump statues. Though originally created as satire by independent producers, Trump reposted it framed more as an aspirational policy vision, sparking international backlash.

The proliferation of advanced generative AI tools like OpenAI’s Sora 2 and Elon Musk’s Grok has made creating convincing deepfakes easier than ever. “It’s better quality, but better quality for really bad use cases,” warned Ben Coleman, CEO of deepfake detection firm Reality Defender. “Generative AI and deepfakes are accelerating misinformation, scams, and attacks on elected officials, minorities, and women.”

The White House has characterized Trump’s controversial AI posts as part of his broader social media strategy. “No leader has used social media to communicate directly with the American people more creatively and effectively than President Trump,” stated White House assistant press secretary Liz Huston.

The administration’s approach has extended beyond Trump’s personal accounts. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Kristi Noem faced criticism for posting an AI-altered image purportedly showing young Black men “threatening ICE.” The original content creator later debunked this claim by sharing the unaltered video with its original, entirely different context.

Experts warn that the constant blurring of truth and fiction erodes public trust in all information sources. Even when the deceptions are obvious, the sheer volume of manufactured content creates what Shahbaz calls “a fog of digital confusion where truth becomes optional.”

The Trump administration’s regulatory response has largely favored private-sector innovation over accountability, with executive orders focusing on preventing “woke” influence in government-funded AI projects rather than on consumer protection.

Critics argue that this AI-driven propaganda machine isn’t merely distorting facts—it’s fundamentally altering how Americans process information, thriving on emotional triggers like anger and loyalty while transforming scandals into spectacles and critics into demeaning memes. The strategy appears designed to cement a post-truth political landscape that threatens to redefine both American politics and our collective sense of reality.