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Former President Donald Trump has a few gripes with the Lincoln Project, a political advocacy group composed of Republicans who oppose Trump’s leadership. A recent complaint: that the group is showing altered footage of him committing gaffes.
"The perverts and losers at the failed and once disbanded Lincoln Project, and others, are using A.I.(Artificial Intelligence) in their Fake television commercials in order to make me look as bad and pathetic as Crooked Joe Biden," Trump posted Dec. 4 on .
In the Lincoln Project’s Dec. 4 video, titled "," a narrator addresses Trump directly with a taunt. "Hey Donald," the female voice says. "We notice something. More and more people are saying it. You’re weak. You seem unsteady. You need help getting around." The video flashes through scenes showing Trump tripping over his words, gesturing, misspeaking and climbing steps to a plane with something white stuck to his shoe.
Are these clips the work of AI? We reviewed them and found the Trump clips are legitimate — and not generated using AI. We reached out to the Trump campaign but did not hear back.
The Lincoln Project on X, formerly Twitter, that its "Feeble" ad was not AI-generated. We also looked at the group published in the days preceding Trump’s post and they included AI-generated content, either.
We identified the origin of all but one of the 31 photos and videos used in the "Feeble" ad, 21 of them featuring Trump. We’ve corroborated them with footage from C-SPAN, news outlets, and/or government archives. In some of the clips, Trump is trying to publicly mock President Joe Biden, which the Lincoln Project ad does not make clear.
Here are sources and context for the clips and photos used in the ad.
- Trump Aug. 21, 2017.
- At the 11:33 time stamp in this Dec. 18, 2017, C-SPAN video, Trump using two hands.
- On Nov. 13, 2017, news footage shows Trump during a media event to sign a bill that aimed to weaken the Affordable Care Act.
- Trump during a rally in Billings, Montana, on Sept. 6, 2018, as seen at the C-SPAN video’s 46:08 time stamp.
- Trump in his remarks at the National Historically Black Colleges and Universities conference on Sept. 10, 2019.
- In an October 2023 speech in Derry, New Hampshire, Trump of Biden supposedly walking around stages looking confused. (1:07)
- A credited to Adam Scull for MediaPunch showed Trump with his father, Fred Trump, on Dec. 31, 1976.
- In a Sept. 15 speech, Trump , "We did it with Obama, we won an election that everyone said couldn’t be won." (22:35) Moments later, he said, "We beat Hillary Clinton."
- Trump mistakenly said "Sioux Falls" , on Oct. 29, 2023. He was corrected by Iowa State Senator Brad Zaun. (06:28)
- Trump mistook Paradise, California, for "" on Nov. 17, 2018, before being corrected.
- During a Republican rally in Michigan on Aug. 11, 2015, Trump criticized his political competitors as being controlled by donors and gestured as a puppeteer, making the sound effects, "bing, bing, ." (21:38)
- Former first lady Melania Trump smiled and while attending Game Four of the World Series on Oct. 31, 2021.
- A clip of Trump descending from a plane is featured in .
- A of Trump with his head down, leaving the stage after addressing the Detroit Economic Club, was taken on Aug. 8, 2016, credited to Rebecca Cook for United Press International.
- A Nov. 15, 2017, showed Trump using two hands to drink from a water bottle.
- Trump held up his closed fists in a at the America First Policy Institute Summit on July 26, 2022. (44:47)
- At the on Sept. 29, 2023, Trump mocked Biden by doing an impression of him acting confused. (40:12)
- Melania Trump did not stop to take photos with her husband at the Palm Beach International Airport on Jan. 23, 2021, as shown on this .
- Trump while boarding a plane Oct. 4, 2018, as can be seen on this KSTP-TV video at 4:51.
- This showed Trump dumping fish food into a koi pond with former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe on Nov. 6, 2017. He followed Abe’s lead in dumping all of the fish food.
- Trump in Buenos Aires on Dec. 3, 2018, leaving Argentinian President Mauricio Macri.
For good measure, we also checked the clips in the video that didn’t feature Trump. These included clips and photos of Biden and stock videos. None of them were AI-generated, either. Here are the sources:
- A showed an older person lifting a dumbbell.
- A showed a caregiver helping an older man with a walker.
- A showed a health care worker listening to a patient’s heartbeat.
- A showed older people clapping.
- A showed pills being placed on a hand.
- Biden during his first official presidential campaign rally in Philadelphia on May 18, 2019. (49:42)
- Biden Aug. 3, 2023.
- Biden the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill March 11, 2021.
- Biden on Feb. 20, 2023 during a surprise visit to Kyiv, Ukraine.
- A of Biden smiling was taken April 27, 2021.
We were unable to find the source for a 1-second video of Biden smiling at the 0:45 timestamp in the ad. We reached out to the Lincoln Project and will update this story if it responds.
But of the 21 Trump-related images and clips in the ad, we found no evidence they were created or altered using AI.
Other recent Lincoln Project ads
The Lincoln Project also uploaded two other ads near the time of Trump’s post that appeared to attack Trump. One called "Christian Trump" was also published on YouTube on Dec. 4. Another, titled "Welcome to the clown show … ," was uploaded Dec. 3.
We checked those, too, and found no evidence that AI was used to alter Trump’s appearance or make him seem to say something he didn’t.
At the 1:09 timestamp of "," the Lincoln Project included a photo of Bibles stacked in a bathroom, which appears to have been altered. The original shows a bathroom in Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, which an indictment said was used to store boxes of records; it did not include a stack of Bibles.
In " ," we were unable to identify the source for a clip of a person talking about his preferred leader at the 0:58 timestamp. We were also unable to identify the source of the audio at the end of "Christian Trump," which sounds like Trump saying "Jesus Christ."
But there were no AI-generated clips of Trump’s likeness. You can view the clips’ sources for these two other ads in this .
We rate Trump’s claim that the Lincoln Project is using AI in its television commercials about Trump False.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
Our Sources
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