House Speaker Mike Johnson was recorded criticizing a bizarre AI-generated video posted by President Donald Trump in a confrontation with a Democratic congressman.
Johnson was challenged by Pennsylvania Rep. Madeleine Dean on Tuesday over a myriad of concerns, including the video, but it was the House speaker’s reaction to the AI-generated footage that raised eyebrows.
“It wasn’t my style,” Johnson can be heard telling Dean, in footage posted to social media from CNN’s Manu Raju.
“Not your style? It’s disgraceful. It’s racist. You should call it out,” Dean responded.
As Johnson walked back to his office, CNN reports he reiterated to Dean: “I’m working on it. And personally, it’s not my style. I love you and I respect you, OK?”
“That’s why I’m talking to you,” Dean replied.
The Daily Beast has contacted Johnson’s office and the White House for comment.
The video, posted by the president to Truth Social on Monday, features Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the latter wearing a sombrero and sporting a mustache. The AI-edited pair speak to the media as mariachi music plays in the background. The president uploaded the footage after Trump hosted the pair at a meeting in the Oval Office.
“Look, guys, there’s no way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left because of all of our woke, trans bulls--t,” Schumer’s likeness tells reporters in the video.
“Not even Black people want to vote for us anymore. Even Latinos hate us. So we need new voters, and if we give all these illegal aliens free health care, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us,” he goes on. “They can’t even speak English, so they won’t realize we’re just a bunch of woke pieces of s--t, you know? At least for a while, until they learn English and they realize they hate us too.”
Speaking to Raju after the confrontation, Dean relayed more of her conversation with Johnson.
“He asked me, like, rhetorically, ‘Is that really racist?’ It’s really racist, it’s despicable, and he should have called it out. And I said, ‘Did you see what the president did in that performance before the generals?” He said he hadn’t seen it," she said.
In a video posted by NOTUS, that part of the exchange can be heard, with Johnson asking, “Is it racist?” and Dean responding, “Is it racist? You put a sombrero on a Black man who’s the leader of the House? You don’t see that as racist?”
“We need you desperately to lead,” Dean implored Johnson.
Johnson appeared to backtrack on Tuesday night when quizzed by CNN host Kaitlan Collins over the confrontation.
“I’m the Speaker of the House, so I represent Republicans and Democrats in that capacity, and I always hear complaints and concerns from members, and I always stop and hear that. I did that for Madeleine Dean, I respect her as an individual,” Johnson said.
“We disagree on every policy matter, and she was concerned about a social media post of the president, which he meant as a joke, and we talked about that. I told her I disagreed with her perspective on it, but I tried to bring her back to the real issue. The fight tonight is not about social media posts. The fight is about where they‘re going to keep the government open for the American people,” he added.
Dean has publicly confronted Johnson before, namely in June after California Sen. Alex Padilla was handcuffed and forcibly removed from a press conference being held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
The backlash to Trump’s AI video was swift, with Collins confronting senior Republican Sen. Roger Marshall with the clip on Monday night.
“Couldn’t the president just say, ‘These demands are ridiculous,’ and not post a video with Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero, and you know, putting that voice over Senator Schumer talking about people of color and immigrants?” Collins asked.
“Look, I think sometimes the president plays with the press, like a little boy and a flashlight and a dog,” Marshall replied. “He’s shining the flashlight here, and he’s shining it there.”
The president’s post came mere days after he posted, and later deleted, another AI-generated video of himself promoting “medbeds”. Medbeds do not exist, but far-right conspiracy theorists believe the federal government has access to these cure-all devices and liberals in power have been keeping them from the public.
