Donald Trump has said and done a number of notable things over the past week.
Here’s one thing he didn’t do: hang up a picture of Jesus Christ in the Oval Office.
A lot of people think he did, however, thanks to a fake/AI-manipulated video that went viral on social media over the holiday weekend. It shows Trump opening up a set of curtains off to the side of his desk at the White House to reveal a copy of Warner Sallman’s famous “Head of Christ” painting.
This type of widespread confusion is pretty much becoming a daily occurrence due to the proliferation of low cost, increasingly-powerful AI tools, so it’s impossible to keep up with more than a small fraction of it, but we feel it’s worth periodically looking at examples, studying how they spread, and learning how to better spot them.
The timing of this particular video’s appearance and virality is also notable, as Trump massacres civilians in Iran and bombs their infrastructure with his partners in Israel and incorporates religious rhetoric into his threats of further escalation.
‘Thank you, POTUS!’
The clip was posted on X by an account called “Gizmo Memes” on Friday afternoon with the caption: “Trump puts up a portrait of Christ for Good Friday. Christ is King!”
Within four hours, the post already had over 45,000 likes. As of this writing, it has over 106,000.
Hellbound and Down 