Topline
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday night shared a fan-made fake video of Ron DeSantis’ Twitter Spaces with Elon Musk that was altered to include Hitler, George Soros and the devil, in his latest swipe against the Florida governor, whose 2024 campaign launch on Twitter was marred by technical glitches.
Key Facts
The clip shared both on Trump’s Instagram account and Truth Social feed has been edited to look like a Twitter Spaces event—similar to the one DeSantis used to announce his 2024 run—but its participants have been altered to include Adolf Hitler, billionaire George Soros, World Economic Forum (WEF) chairman Klaus Schwab, former Vice President Dick Cheney, the FBI and the devil.
The video appears to be using AI-generated voices, voice actors, and in the case of Hitler, audio clips from the 2004 German film Downfall.
The video is 2 minutes and 12 seconds long and appears to imply that DeSantis’ candidacy has the support of the altered participants shown in the video.
The fake clip also posits that the FBI is only present in the call to help “take out” Trump and it leaves the Twitter Space after realizing its public.
A fake Trump joins the Twitter Space at the end and drops a monologue on how he will fight back against all the participants in the call, including a threat to jail both Soros and Schwab—both of whom have been subjects of rightwing conspiracy theories.
Aside from the fake video, Trump’s social handles shared another clip targeting the Florida governor which shows a SpaceX rocket falling on its side with the banner Ron 2024.
News Peg
While Trump has shared the video on his social handles, it appears to be a fan-made video rather than an official campaign-made one. The video includes a watermark to the link ildonaldo.com, which links to a Patreon page of someone who appears to be a Trump fan and also the video’s original creator. In one of the Patreon posts, the creator claims Twitter is hiding the video and they urged their Patrons to share alternate links to the clip. The creator also acknowledges Trump sharing his video with a post titled “WE DO A LITTLE TROLLING.”
Surprising Fact
Trump’s attacks on DeSantis have generated some backlash from his followers on Instagram, many of who are calling him out in the comments for focusing on DeSantis instead of the Democrats. One of the top comments on the rocket crash clip says “This is the exact reason why you’ll be losing at the primaries…your inability to maintain composure is annoying and embarrassing to the grand ol party.”
Further Reading
‘#DeSaster’: DeSantis Roasted Over Botched Twitter Campaign Launch—By Trump, Biden And Others (Forbes)
DeSantis 2024 Announcement: Blasts Biden And ‘Elites’—But Not Trump—In Talk With Elon Musk (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/05/25/trumps-latest-attack-on-desantis-a-bizarre-fake-video-featuring-hitler-soros-the-devil-and-musk/