{"id":184314,"date":"2025-10-02T05:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T05:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/184314\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T05:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T05:37:07","slug":"white-house-plays-racist-deepfake-video-of-democratic-leaders-on-loop-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/184314\/","title":{"rendered":"White House plays racist deepfake video of Democratic leaders on loop | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Trump administration<\/a> insists it is serious about negotiating an end to the government shutdown, a pair of racist deepfake videos mocking Democratic leaders played on a loop in the White House briefing room for hours on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The videos, posted by Trump on his social media platform on Monday, use fabricated audio<\/a> to make it seem as if the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, called Democrats \u201cwoke pieces of shit\u201d, and showed the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, with a fake mustache and sombrero.<\/p>\n

JD Vance, the US vice-president, made light of the tactic during a rare appearance in the briefing room. \u201cI think it\u2019s funny. The president\u2019s joking and we\u2019re having a good time. You can negotiate in good faith while also making a little bit of fun at some of the absurdities of the Democrats\u2019 positions, and even poking some fun at the absurdity of themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> right now, I make the solemn promise to you that if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop. I\u2019ve talked to the president of the United States about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeffries has denounced the memes as racist. Vance retorted: \u201cI honestly don\u2019t even know what that means. Like, is he a Mexican American that is offended by having a sombrero meme?\u201d<\/p>\n

The clips, both set to Mexican mariachi music, are intended to drive home the administration\u2019s false claim that the Democrats are demanding health insurance subsidies for unauthorized immigrants as a condition for funding the federal government.<\/p>\n

In fact, Democrats want to ensure that funding is provided to Americans who rely on Affordable Care Act subsidies to purchase health insurance. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for those subsidies.<\/p>\n

Democrats have also asked to reverse a provision of the Republican tax and spending bill that stripped health benefits of lawfully present immigrants<\/a>, including refugees with Temporary Protected Status and non-citizens who were brought to the US as children, who were previously eligible for federal benefits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) designation.<\/p>\n

The fabricated words put in Schumer\u2019s mouth are presented as an admission by the Democratic senator of a far-right conspiracy theory promoted by white supremacists, that Democrats want to give government benefits to undocumented immigrants from Latin America as part of a plot to replace white voters with immigrants who will then vote for Democrats.<\/p>\n

The so-called \u201cgreat replacement\u201d theory has been cited by a number of shooters who have carried out racist mass shootings, including<\/a> the gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019, and another who murdered 11 congregants in the the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. The conspiracy theory also prompted torch-carrying, white supremacist marchers at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 to chant \u201cJews will not replace us<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Jeffries called the first video racist, Trump posted a second clip<\/a>, of the Democrat calling the fabricated video \u201cdisgusting\u201d, in which the sombrero and mustache are again added to the congressman, and a mariachi band featuring four versions of Trump plays in the background.<\/p>\n

David Smith, Guardian Washington bureau chief, contributed reporting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Trump administration insists it is serious about negotiating an end to the government shutdown, a pair…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-184314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}