President Donald Trump has been accused of sharing an AI-generated video showing a U.S. military airstrike targeting a boat allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela.
Freddy Nanez, Venezuela’s communications minister, suggested that the clip Trump posted on Truth Social, which is believed to show the moment that 11 people were killed during a strike in international waters, was fake and looked “cartoonish.”
Trump announced Tuesday that the U.S. military had hit the boat at a White House briefing that was the president’s first official public appearance in a week amid speculation about the 79-year-old’s health.
Trump claimed the people targeted on the boat were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which the U.S. designated a terrorist group in February.
He also shared the video of the vessel being struck at sea, accompanied by the typically unhinged warning: “Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE! Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!!!!!!!!!”
Nanez has now said the video, which was also shared online by several Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, of being “generated by AI.”
“The video shows a ship being attacked and then exploding in a way that looks like a simplified, almost cartoonish animation, rather than a realistic depiction of an explosion,” Nanez wrote on social media.
“The video contains motion artifacts and a lack of realistic detail, which is common in AI-generated videos. The water, in particular, looks very stylized and unnatural,” he added.
News agency Reuters said it conducted independent checks on the video and found no evidence of manipulation. Reuters added that thorough verification “is an ongoing process” and that it will continue to review the footage as more information becomes available.
While not addressing the AI claims specifically, John Feeley, a former U.S. ambassador to Panama who worked in anti-drug operations in Latin America, said the video shared by the Trump administration does not align with standard Coast Guard protocol for stopping boats believed to be carrying narcotics.
“Everything is done to preserve life,” Feeley told The Wall Street Journal. “What we don’t do is just shoot up boats like Netflix likes to pretend. We can shoot in self-defense, but we rarely do that because most narcos just give up.”
The Pentagon referred a request for comment from the Daily Beast to the White House, who did not immediately respond.
Elsewhere on Tuesday, Trump suggested that bizarre viral footage showing items being launched from a White House window was “probably AI-generated,” claiming the building’s windows cannot be opened because they are all “heavily armored and bullet-proofed.”
That statement directly contradicts an earlier explanation from the White House, which said the video was genuine and showed “a contractor who was doing regular maintenance while the President was gone.”
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