Ron DeSantis Angers MAGA With AI-Generated Trump Attack Ad Images

Supporters of Donald Trump are calling out Florida Governor Ron DeSantis due to a recent online attack ad that features images generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

The blue check-verified DeSantis War Room Twitter account posted an ad on Monday comparing Trump's rise to TV stardom while "firing" people as the former host of The Apprentice and his inability to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), dating back to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Viewed over 8.5 million times as of Friday afternoon, the ad was confirmed by digital forensics experts and fact checkers to contain multiple deepfake images of the former president and Fauci hugging.

"This video contains real imagery interspersed with AI-generated imagery of Trump hugging and kissing Dr. Anthony Fauci without noting they are fake," reads a contextual note added to the DeSantis War Room tweet. "In addition, Trump could not directly fire Dr. Fauci without the move going through an administrative judge or a late EO [executive order]."

On Thursday, Trump supporter Laura Loomer tagged Elon Musk—who hosted DeSantis last month on Twitter Spaces as he announced his candidacy to become president in 2024—as part of a tweet request to understand why Trump supporters receive a "community note" when posting about DeSantis, but the DeSantis War Room video did not.

"Hey @elonmusk. How come Trump supporters get community noted for posting facts about @RonDeSantis but then his campaign is allowed to post doctored AI generated images on Trump embracing Fauci and nothing happens? Just seems a bit biased. #Trump2024," Loomer tweeted prior to the note being added to the video.

The ad was also chastised by Trump senior adviser Jason Miller, following his boss' footsteps by referring to the Florida governor as "DeSanctimonious" on Twitter on Thursday.

Conservative podcaster Tim Pool, who said he was formerly deciding between both candidates as the GOP's presidential nominee, said the ad has made him completely disregard DeSantis and demanded that he "disavow" the ad.

"DeSantis War Room is running AI Images of Trump embracing Fauci," Pool tweeted. "This crosses the line."

DeSantis War Room is the presidential candidate's "rapid response Twitter operation," according to its bio. It is not clear whether it is directly affiliated to or run by the DeSantis campaign, or if the clip was approved by the governor himself.

However, the DeSantis team did not use the first AI-generated software in an ad. The Trump team did it first last month, sharing a video of a fake Twitter Space showing DeSantis's face next to Musk, Adolf Hitler, former Vice President Dick Cheney, World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab, the Devil and an FBI agent.

"Gimma a break," Ann Coulter tweeted on Thursday in response to Pool. "Trump's been doing this to DeSantis for weeks. At least DeSantis's AI images are obvious fakes, intended to amuse, not to deceive."

These are just a couple instances of what is expected to be a heavy political cycle resorting to AI-generated software in attempts to both attract voters and shun candidates' opponents, Ramesh Srinivasan, professor of information studies at UCLA, told Newsweek via phone on Friday.

"I think more and more the political arena is about affect, or about emotion and grabbing one's attention and stirring up their anxieties and increasingly identifying ourselves as either in group or out group," Srinivasan said. "If I'm for Trump, I'm against DeSantis. If I'm for Biden, I am against Trump. The idea of someone simply speaking to us in a rational, facts-based, almost non-charged way is increasingly a thing of the past. And that's why we're going to quite rapidly see, in my opinion, all other Republican candidates who do not play to emotion drop out at some point."

He added that he doesn't like to "blame" social media or say it's the main culprit for behavior encountered in the political sphere, though Srinivasan acknowledges the proliferation of the online universe combined with our current technologies is exasperating the issue.

In 2017, Cambridge Analytica delved into this kind of political villainization against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

According to Srinivasan, political villainization has accelerated and now "we are in a new era" of it.

"Disinformation is the perfect weapon or ally to a political environment, which now is all about emotion and the idea of the either in a group or against the group," he added. "I do think all of this is very, very dangerous for a more people's driven democracy."