The U.S. president said Tehran was spreading fake footage of attacks and rallies to artificially inflate the regime’s standing amid the war.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on March 15 that Tehran is using artificial intelligence (AI) as a “disinformation weapon” in the ongoing war between Iran and the United States and Israel.
“They said they attacked the USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the largest ships in the world, an aircraft carrier, and they show pictures of it burning. It was never attacked. It was never burning,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
“One other thing that was AI-generated, they showed about 250,000 people in a square saying how much they love Khamenei. Totally AI-generated. It never took place.”
The president said that some U.S. media outlets published footage of the allegedly AI-generated rally in support of the regime.
His comments aboard Air Force One came shortly after he said in a post on Truth Social that Iran was working in “close coordination” with “the Fake News Media” to spread AI-generated footage.
He suggested that media outlets propagating such images should be “brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information.”
The Trump administration has not yet provided evidence that the Iranian regime has used AI-generated footage.
The comments come amid growing tensions between the Federal Communications Commission and broadcasters after Trump took aim at media coverage of the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said on March 14 that the agency could pull the licenses of some broadcasters, accusing them of publishing “fake news” amid the ongoing war with Iran.
Broadcasters that are running what Carr referred to as “news distortions” must now “correct course before their license renewals come up,” the FCC chairman wrote on social media.
“The law is clear,” he said. “Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”
Carr’s remarks included a screenshot of a post Trump made on Truth Social earlier in the day, in which he accused U.S. media outlets of misleading coverage of the Iran war.
By Guy Birchall
