Trump video glitch triggers deepfake claims and health concerns
An unusual cut in a video statement by Donald Trump sparked concern over the president's health and whether the clip could be a deepfake
When US President Donald Trump published a video address from the Oval Office after conservative activist and close ally Charlie Kirk was fatally shot on a university campus in Utah on Wednesday, social media users claimed it was the product of AI.
A vanishing finger, unnatural body language, a static posture, distortions and glitches in the background during the speech convinced viewers in volume that the video had been AI-manipulated. The White House denied critiques that it had used an AI tool.
There was a number of inconsistencies in the video that led to the speculation.
At 18 seconds, a cut seemed to be the main focus of the discussion. At this point, the video shows Trump losing his little finger for a split second. As his hands are moving, Trump’s jacket sleeve, seen on the left side of this video, travels down his arm in a way that seems inconsistent with the small movement of his hands. This slowed down clip was taken from the original video uploaded to the official White House YouTube page.
There was also an unnatural head movement at the same 18-second point, suggesting at the very least a jump cut that was smoothed over in editing software. At the same time, a shadow jumps in the window behind him, again suggesting a potential jump cut.
Verification tools cannot definitively confirm that the video was manipulated using AI. Hive Moderation, a tool that can suggest a percentage likelihood of AI use, gave this clip a very low likelihood score of 0.2%. No Google AI watermarks were detected in the clip, according to Google’s own detector tool SynthID.
Video-editing techniques such as air-brushing, blurring between two stitched clips, or colour-grading could give the impression of an artificial or altered recording.
Despite the influx of speculative claims, several experts came to the conclusion that generative-AI technology — or deepfake — was not used to create or edit Trump’s video reaction to Kirk’s death.
The lack of movement in the middle part of the body can be an indication that a video is a deepfake. But AI fact-checking specialist Henk Van Ess said he could not find a well-known AI model responsible for generating the footage.
“The subtle, asymmetrical muscle contractions around the eyes and mouth are too organic for AI,” Van Ess, wrote in an analysis on X. “Generative video struggles with creating these flawless, non-repeating micro-expressions. Deepfake detectors look for lighting errors, and there are none here. Notice how the highlights in his eyes (specular reflections) shift perfectly as he moves his head. The soft shadows under his chin also move in perfect sync.”
Van Ess also cited the reflections of Trump’s arms on the table, saying they are realistic and seem to be correct.
Other researchers, like Patrick Wong, Chair of neXt Generation Multimedia Technologies Research Group at the UK’s Open University, ran tests to try and spot the use of deepfake techniques, according to BBC Verify. They were inconclusive. Still, Wong said he could not confidently attribute the video to AI.
Citing an analysis by Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley specialised in digitally manipulated images, X’s embedded AI tool Grok went back on earlier statements that the video could be fake, instead stressing that the inconsistencies were due to morph cuts used to splice clips together.
Concern over Trump’s health
The speculation that the video could be a deepfake came amid heightened scrutiny on Trump and his recent public appearances.
Concern ballooned on Thursday when the president appeared unwell and fatigued, with the side of his mouth unusually drooping downwards and his head moving uncharacteristically during a 9/11 commemoration ceremony.
Social media users claimed the gestures were evidence that Trump had suffered a stroke — either while the camera was pointed at him during the event or sometime a couple of weeks ago, with some speculating the incident occurred late last month. Asymmetrical facial droop was enough to alarm users, after the president had spent a short period largely out of public view.
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Commenters fuelled the claims, with some stating the video message about Charlie Kirk was spliced because Trump’s health “didn’t get this bad in one day”. Some of the other claims included that "they injected Botox to hide the drooping—the video is cut to try to hide the fact that he can no longer talk for a single minute” and that the president was “dying” (comments can be seen here and here).
Healthcare workers jumped in on the commentary and offered their own medical assessments. A nurse said Trump’s appearance matched the symptoms of a person who has suffered a stroke, calling it “textbook stroke presentation”, while a physical therapist who said he works in geriatrics recorded himself alleging that the White House had lied about Trump having had a stroke.
On September 2, Trump dismissed rumors about ill health as “fake news”, saying he was active, giving interviews and playing golf. There has been no confirmed medical diagnosis of Trump’s alleged ill health from a credible authority.
This is not the first time Trump has faced rumors of a stroke or mini-stroke. In 2020, Trump’s physician issued a statement saying that the president had not suffered such a medical emergency after an unexpected visit to Walter Reed hospital in November 2019.
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