Donald Trump hugs Dr Fauci deepfake

Ron de Santis' US presidential campaign released a video on Twitter with fake images of Donald Trump hugging and kissing his former medical advisor Dr Anthony Fauci in an attempt to depict Trump as a supporter of Fauci’s policies combatting COVID-19. 

The video criticised Trump for not firing Fauci, who was seen by many US conservatives as pushing too hard for COVID-19 restrictions, and was reputedly viewed as a bete noire by Trump.

The video interspersed apparently real footage of Trump at press conferences and interviews, with deepfake images, making the latter harder to detect. It also failed to disclose its use of AI, and the DeSantis campaign team chose not to respond to allegations that the images had been artificially generated.