In a Wave of Bizarre Late-Night Social Media Posts, Trump Roasts Haley With Deepfake Image of Her Morphed Into Hillary Clinton
A ‘torrent of fraudulent deep fakes threatens to destabilize our fragile election system — maybe even decide elections — but so far the FEC hasn’t managed to use its existing authority to head off the problem,’ Public Citizen warns.
In a string of late-night social media posts, President Trump focused his ire on the candidate who has become his main primary opponent after Iowa — Ambassador Haley — culminating in a strange post where Ms. Haley’s image is blended with that of Secretary of State Clinton’s.
Around midnight Tuesday, Mr. Trump began posting a series of images focusing on Ms. Haley, with the first one criticizing her for comments on the retirement age. “Haley said that 65 years old is ‘way too low’ of a retirement age,” the image says.
The critique appears to reference comments made by Ms. Haley that she would raise the age for retirees to begin receiving Social Security benefits to 67 from 65.
In the next image, Mr. Trump attacks Ms. Haley with an image with text reading that “Haley wants to cut social security benefits by changing cost of living adjustment.”
Mr. Trump also returned to a criticism of Ms. Haley that has featured prominently in some of his ads against her, criticizing her for saying she would not support raising the gas tax in 2013, before agreeing to sign a bill raising the gas tax in South Carolina in 2015.
In 2015, Ms. Haley agreed to raise the gas tax only if state income taxes were also cut. She told reporters in 2016 that “I’m going to veto anything that is a net tax increase.”
Mr. Trump then went on to post an image criticizing Ms. Haley’s position in the party, with text reading “Haley is the establishment candidate who is loved by Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney.”
The final post, around 1 am Wednesday, combines Ms. Haley’s image with Ms. Clintons, with text — mimicking Ms. Clinton’s 2016 logo — saying “Haley.”
Mr. Trump’s final post comes as critics of artificial intelligence push to have the Federal Elections Commission regulate the use of the tool in political advertising.
The president of Public Citizen, Robert Weissman, said in a statement that the FEC needs to lay down ground rules for the use of artificial intelligence, saying that “There’s no partisan interest here, it’s just a matter of choosing democracy over fraud and chaos.”
“Do we have a real Federal Election Commission, or is the FEC just a computer-generated illusion?” Mr. Weissman said. “The entire political world knows that a torrent of fraudulent deepfakes threatens to destabilize our fragile election system — maybe even decide elections — but so far the FEC hasn’t managed to use its existing authority to head off the problem.”
