President Donald Trump reposted an AI-generated video on Truth Social on Sunday, July 20, depicting the fake arrest and imprisonment of former President Barack Obama. The video, originally created by a MAGA supporter on TikTok, is part of a flurry of weekend posts by Trump following claims by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard alleged the Obama administration was part of a “treasonous conspiracy” to undermine Trump’s 2016 election win.
What does the video show?
The video opens with clips of Obama and other Democrats saying, “no one is above the law.” It then cuts to an animated Pepe the Frog – an internet meme embraced by segments of the MAGA movement – wearing clown makeup and honking a red nose.
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From there, the footage switches to AI-generated scenes: Obama being “arrested” by FBI agents in the Oval Office with Trump grinning nearby and as “YMCA” plays in the background. The images are digitally altered from real footage of Obama’s meeting with Trump in November of 2016. In a final shot, Obama is shown in a jail cell, wearing an orange jumpsuit.
The video follows Gabbard’s announcement on Friday, July 18, that she will refer former Obama administration officials to the Department of Justice for prosecution. She claims they fabricated intelligence reports about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Gabbard’s claims
“Creating this piece of manufactured intelligence that claims that Russia had helped Donald Trump get elected contradicted every other assessment that had been made previously in the months leading up to the election that said exactly the opposite, that Russia had neither the intent nor the capability to try to ‘hack the United States Election,’” Gabbard told Fox News on Sunday.
Trump posted more than a dozen times about Gabbard’s allegations since her announcement.
Gabbard argued that newly declassified documents reveal how the Obama administration “politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.”
“The implications of this are frankly nothing short of historic,” Gabbard said during an episode of Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“Over 100 documents that we released on Friday really detail and provide evidence of how this treasonous conspiracy was directed by President Obama just weeks before he was due to leave office after President Trump had already got elected,” Gabbard said.
Democrats and Republicans respond
Democrats quickly dismissed the allegations as baseless. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called it “one more example of the director of national intelligence trying to cook the books.”
While some Trump supporters embraced the AI video – with conservative journalist Nick Sortor writing on X, “MAKE THIS A REALITY,” while tagging Attorney General Pam Bondi – others were more skeptical.
Some on the right viewed it as a distraction from growing criticism of Trump’s handling of the Epstein case and recent calls for transparency on newly released documents.
