4 hours ago
Last Updated:July 21, 2025, 09:19 IST
The post came as Trump’s intel chief Tulsi Gabbard alleged that Obama and his intel team orchestrated what she called a years-long coup against him starting in 2016
The video was posted without any disclaimer clarifying that it was artificially generated.
US President Donald Trump has triggered a political firestorm after posting an AI-generated video depicting former President Barack Obama being arrested by FBI agents inside the Oval Office. The video surfaced alongside new allegations by Director of Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who claims that Obama and his top intelligence officials manufactured the Trump-Russia collusion narrative to subvert the 2016 election results.
The 45-second video, posted on Truth Social, opens with a montage of Democrats, including Obama, declaring that “no one is above the law." Obama is also seen saying, “especially the President is above the law." The footage then transitions into a deepfake-style sequence in which an AI-generated Obama is handcuffed by FBI agents in the Oval Office as Trump, also AI-generated, sits nearby, smiling. The video ends with Obama wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, standing inside a jail cell, while the song “YMCA" plays in the background.
The video was posted without any disclaimer clarifying that it was artificially generated. Critics have labelled the move “deeply irresponsible" and “deliberately inflammatory."
The post appeared shortly after Tulsi Gabbard made public over 100 documents, which she claims detail how a “treasonous conspiracy" was directed by Obama just weeks before he left office. She alleged that senior Obama officials distorted intelligence to falsely suggest that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US election to help Trump win.
Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate, currently serves as Director of Intelligence under Trump.
“The implications of this are frankly nothing short of historic," Gabbard said. “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 gotten elected."
Gabbard plans to send the documents to the Department of Justice and the FBI for a criminal referral. She said the documents show that, prior to the 2016 election, there was no evidence of collusion with Russia and that politically motivated actors created a false intelligence narrative to harm Trump.
The Trump-Russia collusion theory refers to the widely discussed but contested allegations that Trump’s 2016 campaign coordinated with Russian actors to influence the outcome of the US presidential election.
“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,’" she said.
Gabbard called the actions of Obama and his senior national security team an attempt to “subvert the will of the American people, undermining our democratic republic and enacting what would be essentially a years-long coup against President Trump, who was duly elected by the American people."
In a post on X, Gabbard wrote: “Americans will finally learn the truth about how in 2016, intelligence was politicised and weaponised by the most powerful people in the Obama administration to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Donald Trump, subverting the will of the American people and undermining our democratic republic."
She added: “This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. This is an issue that is so serious it should concern every single American because it has to do with the integrity of our democratic republic."
A 114-page document released by the Office of the Director of Intelligence states that, before the 2016 election, the Intelligence Community assessed that Russia was “probably not trying to influence the election by using cyber means." A draft of the President’s daily brief dated December 8, 2016, concluded that Russia “did not impact recent US election results" by conducting malicious cyber activities against US election infrastructure.
Obama and former officials from his administration have not responded to the claims.
The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d...Read More
The News Desk is a team of passionate editors and writers who break and analyse the most important events unfolding in India and abroad. From live updates to exclusive reports to in-depth explainers, the Desk d...
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News world Donald Trump Shares AI Video Showing FBI ‘Arresting’ Barack Obama Inside Oval Office
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