A new ad by the Lincoln Project that Donald Trump falsely claims uses AI to make him look bad.
YouTube/The Lincoln Project
Donald Trump attacked the Lincoln Project on Monday night with claims the anti-Trump political advocacy group is using artificial intelligence to make the former president look bad. The only problem? There’s no evidence the Lincoln Project’s ad uses anything but authentic footage of Trump.
“The perverts and losers at the failed and once disbanded Lincoln Project, and others, are using A.I.(Artificial Intelligence) in their Fake television commercials in order to make me look as bad and pathetic as Crooked Joe Biden, not an easy thing to do,” Trump wrote on his social network Truth Social late Monday.
A Truth Social post from Donald Trump on Monday falsely claiming an ad used AI to make him look bad.
Truth Social
Trump went on to complain Fox News shouldn’t run ads from the Lincoln Project, perhaps giving a hint at where he saw the TV commercial. But the ads are also available online through YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter. And they appear to utilize clips that are pretty well known gaffes from both Trump’s presidency and his 2024 presidential campaign.
The ad, titled “Feeble” on YouTube, opens with an infamous shot of Trump staring at an eclipse, and uses a lot of other footage that’s not necessarily made up of gaffes but rather lowlights from the Trump presidency, where people seem disgusted with the 45th president.
Reached for comment late Monday, a spokesperson for the Lincoln Project directed me to a tweet from the group’s co-founder, Rick Wilson, addressing Trump’s false claim that the ad used AI.
“Listen, you shambling pantloaf, we didn’t need AI to make you look like an impotent, drooling codger in steep cognitive decline. @ProjectLincoln just showed reality and you can’t take it. Stay tuned for more. We know you can’t look away,” Wilson tweeted.
Below is a rundown of some Trump gaffes from the ad, along with where they originally appeared. Again, none of the mistakes in the TV spot were created with AI.
Trump struggles with the word “anonymous” – September 6, 2018 in Billings, Montana (YouTube/IBTimes)
Trump claims he won an election against Obama – September 15, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (YouTube/MSNBC)
Trump calls the town of Paradise, California “Pleasure” during a visit as president after bad wildfires hit the region – November 18, 2018 (YouTube/The Guardian)
The narration of the ad also suggests Joe Biden is a more virile man that Trump, even cutting to stock footage shot of someone pouring out two blue pills—the clear implication being that Trump needs to use Viagra.
“Face it Donald. You’re just projecting when you call Joe Biden old. He’s stronger than you, fitter than you, smarter than you, a better man and a better president. Anyone can see it,” the ad says.
“And when you lay there at night alone. You know we’re right. You’re falling apart Donald. Breaking down. Right in front of our eyes,” the ad continues.
Oddly enough, Trump is the one who has used AI in a Truth Social post back in March, sharing a fake image of the former president kneeling down to pray. The RNC has also used AI, creating the first-ever attack ad with completely fake images imagining what a second Biden term would look like. In the RNC’s case, they put a very small disclaimer that all the images were created using AI.
Experts on misinformation have warned that the 2024 presidential election will see unprecedented levels of manipulated media being shared on social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook and X. But this appears to be the first case of a candidate saying his actual words and actions were created using AI when they weren’t. And all signs point to it only getting worse from here.
Trump is currently leading Biden in multiple national polls, either despite or because of Trump’s increased extremism in recent years since he left office. Trump rather infamously tried to stop the certification of the 2020 election on January 6, 2021 when he directed a mob to march towards Congress. And Trump has been indicted four times for a host of alleged crimes, including his efforts to subvert democracy.
Trump has gone so far as to suggest Gen. Mark Milley should be executed for treason and openly talks about getting “retribution” against his perceived enemies at his rallies. Meanwhile, there’s reporting in a number of major media outlets outlining how Trump plans to gut the civil service and replace the leadership at federal agencies with people who share his far-right interpretation on the U.S. constitution.
Trump is polling ahead of Biden in five of the six swing states identified by the New York Times as crucial to winning the presidency in 2024. And, love Trump or hate him, that’s no mirage of artificial intelligence.
This story was updated December 5, 2023 at 2:08 a.m. ET with comment from representatives at the Lincoln Project.
