trump Campaign amplifies Racist Deepfake Videos Targeting Democratic Leaders
WASHINGTON – The Trump campaign is circulating digitally altered videos, or “deepfakes,” featuring prominent Democratic leaders, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, overlaid with racially charged imagery. The videos, set to Mexican mariachi music and featuring sombreros and mustaches digitally added to the politicians’ faces, are being used to falsely claim Democrats are prioritizing health insurance for undocumented immigrants over funding the federal government.
The campaign’s use of the videos has drawn swift condemnation, with Jeffries denouncing them as racist. When confronted, Senator J.D.Vance questioned the basis of the criticism, asking, “I honestly don’t even know what that means. Like, is he a Mexican American that is offended by having a sombrero meme?”
The videos misrepresent Democrats’ position on federal funding.Democrats are seeking to maintain Affordable Care Act subsidies for eligible Americans and reverse a Republican provision that stripped health benefits from lawfully present immigrants, including refugees with Temporary protected Status and recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for ACA subsidies.
However, the deepfakes present fabricated statements attributed to Schumer, falsely suggesting support for providing government benefits to undocumented immigrants as part of a scheme to alter the electorate – a claim rooted in the risky “great replacement” theory.
This conspiracy theory, which posits a deliberate effort to replace white voters with immigrants, has been cited as motivation by perpetrators of several mass shootings, including the 2019 Walmart shooting in El Paso, Texas, which left 23 dead, and the 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, that killed 11. the theory also fueled the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where marchers chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
Following Jeffries’ initial criticism,former President Trump posted a second altered video featuring the congressman reacting to the first,again adding the sombrero and mustache imagery,accompanied by a mariachi band comprised of multiple images of Trump.
The trump campaign’s deployment of these deepfakes raises concerns about the weaponization of misinformation and the amplification of racist tropes during a period of heightened political tension.
David Smith, Guardian Washington bureau chief, contributed reporting.
