If you’ve ever shown your grandparents one of those obviously fake AI videos, you know the drill. They’ll nod along and believe every word, whether it’s a dog heroically saving a baby from a river or Elon Musk promising to give away all his money. The polite thing to do is smile and let them have their moment.
Well, apparently, Donald Trump has joined that club. Even with all the chaos surrounding him and the state of his brain at almost 80, he somehow got tricked by an AI-generated video of… himself. Yes, someone made a deepfake of Trump giving a speech, and he reposted it like it was real. At some point, presumably, an aide noticed and deleted it, probably thinking, “Grandpa, maybe time for bed.”
The video wasn’t even very good. It showed Trump announcing a “National Medbed card” for every American. In the fake speech, he claimed that every citizen would get guaranteed access to top-of-the-line hospitals, staffed with the best doctors and the most advanced technology. According to the deepfake, these hospitals would restore every American to full health and strength.
The “Medbeds” concept comes from a bizarre far-right conspiracy. It claims that billionaires have access to miraculous high-tech beds that can cure any disease, but they’re keeping them secret from everyone else. Spoiler: they don’t exist. They’re pure science fiction.
The ironic part? If the video had been real, it would have amounted to Trump announcing government-funded healthcare for all Americans. Basically, the kind of coverage most of the developed world already has. Instead, the reality is very different. Trump has broken campaign promises, left Medicare and Medicaid vulnerable, and is okay with Americans struggling under massive medical debt while hospitals shut down.
So yes, the idea of Medbeds is just fantasy. But it’s a fantasy that’s far better than the actual healthcare nightmare we’re stuck with. And in that sense, Trump believing in the fake video is almost sad and funny at the same time.
