The Trump team freakout over DeSantis AI deepfakes proves its weakness
Ian Haworth
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Earlier this week, the DeSantis campaign released a video attacking former President Donald Trump on his refusal to fire the villain of the Right, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“Donald Trump became a household name by FIRING countless people *on television*,” the DeSantis War Room tweeted alongside the video. “But when it came to Fauci …”
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY: BIG TENT OR BIG TOP?
https://twitter.com/DeSantisWarRoom/status/1665799058303188992
The video contained quick-fire clips of Trump refusing to fire Fauci, calling him a “wonderful guy,” and arguing that had he fired the decadeslong bureaucrat, it would have sparked a “firestorm” on the Left.
But the DeSantis campaign committed a damaging, and idiotic, mistake: Based on initial reports, several images used briefly during the 44-second video are AI-generated deepfakes of Trump embracing Fauci and even kissing his forehead.
Making matters worse, the DeSantis team even added “Real Life Trump” as a constant banner throughout the video.
Let’s be clear: The DeSantis team’s use of AI images in political attacks is wrong.
But let’s also be clear: MAGA’s outrage is hilariously selective.
After all, Trump himself targeted Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) with a fake image of the Florida governor riding a rhino, implied that DeSantis groomed high school girls with alcohol, and shared a fake video of DeSantis’s campaign announcement alongside George Soros, the World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab, Dick Cheney, the FBI, Adolf Hitler, and the devil.
I wonder why Fauci wasn’t included.
While there is no excuse for the DeSantis team including “Real Life Trump,” thereby precluding the loose excuse of satire employed by the Trump campaign with gusto, let’s not pretend that political primaries aren’t already replete with innuendo, fiction, and outright lies.
And for Trump loyalists, one of whom argued that Casey DeSantis “exaggerated” her cancer diagnosis to “appeal to voters,” to have a sudden respect for reality is laughable.
But there’s another layer here that explains the Trump camp’s angry response: They know that COVID-19 is Trump’s greatest weakness.
Make no mistake: This is the attack strategy to use against Trump. Despite promising to “drain the swamp,” he refused to fire the swampiest of all swamp creatures in Fauci, notwithstanding his demonstrable failure regarding multiple health crises, because Trump was afraid of the Left’s response. Meanwhile, Trump also passed all power regarding COVID-19 policy over to Fauci.
If you hate Fauci, you only have Trump to blame.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 policy in Florida under DeSantis stands as clear evidence of the candidates’ differences in the face of the same information and the same choices.
With COVID-19 as the issue at the heart of the two presidential campaigns, DeSantis can ask voters whether or not they would have rather lived in Florida during the ideological pandemic that was COVID-19 authoritarianism under Trump’s supposedly Republican-led federal government.
But the DeSantis team shouldn’t be tarring its golden ammunition with unnecessary fake images of Trump and Fauci, especially when doing so hands the Trump campaign its only remaining defense: cry victim, again.
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Ian Haworth (@ighaworth) is the host of Off Limits with Ian Haworth. You can also find him on Substack.