Trump doubles down on racist AI videos as shutdown deadline passes

President Donald Trump turned to artificial intelligence (AI)-generated videos to mock Democratic leaders on Monday night, hours after budget talks collapsed and 750,000 federal workers faced the prospect of losing their paychecks.

The deepfake video showed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a digital sombrero with mariachi music playing. A computer-generated voice pretending to be Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spewed lies about immigrants voting illegally.

Source: Donald Trump / Truth Social

Trump posted the 35-second clip on Truth Social after meeting with both Democrats at the White House. No funding deal emerged from those talks, leaving the government on track to shut down at midnight Tuesday.

The fake Schumer voice claimed Democrats need illegal immigrants to vote because their party has lost support. This statement spreads a common falsehood. Non-citizens cannot vote in federal elections, and voter fraud remains extremely rare across the country.

Tuesday brought another deepfake from Trump. He took footage of Jeffries condemning the first video and added an AI mariachi band with Trump’s face playing over the Democrats’ words.

Federal workers now wait to learn their fate. The Congressional Budget Office says three-quarters of a million employees would go without pay during a shutdown.

Democrats want healthcare funding protections in any deal. Republicans prefer a simple extension without policy changes. Neither side showed signs of budging after Monday’s White House meeting.

“It’s a disgusting video,” Jeffries told MSNBC. “And we’re going to continue to make clear, bigotry will get you nowhere. We are fighting to protect the health care of the American people in the face of an unprecedented Republican assault on all the things: Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act.”

Vice President JD Vance saw things differently on Wednesday. “Oh, I think it’s funny. The president’s joking, and we’re having a good time,” he said at a White House briefing.

The videos used Mexican stereotypes against Jeffries, who is Black. Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat called the post insulting, while Democratic Women’s Caucus Chair Teresa Leger Fernández compared Trump’s behavior to a child’s tantrum.

Jeffries issued a direct challenge Tuesday at the Capitol. “Mr. President, the next time you have something to say about me, don’t cop out through a racist and fake A.I. video. When I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face.”

The White House Twitter account responded by posting that clip with laughing emojis and “Oh no! Hakeem is BIG MAD!”

Peter Loge, who directs George Washington University’s Project on Ethics in Political Communication, sees danger in these tactics. Presidents should bring Americans together and build trust in democratic institutions, he explained. Sharing racist deepfakes does the opposite.

The technology to create, at a certain level, convincing fake videos has become widely available. Trump has embraced these tools repeatedly, from posing as the Pope to creating AI images about deportations.

Budget negotiations continued Tuesday evening with no breakthrough. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of federal workers prepared for the possibility of empty paychecks.