Is an AI-generated video of a politician technically a deepfake if the words they’re saying are their own?
By any reasonable definition, yes, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee published just such a deepfake of Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on its X account on Friday:
Week 3 of the Schumer Shutdown:
"Every day gets better for us." pic.twitter.com/1qeNKhvcfI
— Senate Republicans (@NRSC) October 17, 2025
The ad, which is labeled as AI-generated, depicts Schumer saying six words he did actually say: “Every day gets better for us,” but the quote originally comes from a text interview with Schumer published in Punchbowl News. After saying these words in the video, Schumer’s digital mouth peels into a nightmare grin like Jim Carrey in The Grinch.
“These are Chuck Schumer’s own words,” NRSC communications director Joanna Rodriguez told The Associated Press, adding that “video is a way for voters to see and hear it themselves.” Reading the quote aloud in a scary voice and putting it onscreen in red text is a more traditional way of doing this in political ads.
The video is vaguely cinematic, with heavy bokeh. Savvy internet content consumers probably would not mistake this for an off-the-cuff-remark taken from a TV news clip, or a smartphone video taken by a congressional reporter. It looks more like a stock photo of Schumer hastily animated with a quick-and-dirty online tool like Google’s Veo 3.
That’s not to say there’s nothing to worry about. According to a famous genre of viral video, Facebook users in their 60s and older fall for much less plausible AI trickery all the time.
The X rules state “You may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm.” The “likely to cause harm” phrasing leaves room for interpretation, particularly since the video has only received 364 reposts and 414 likes on X at the time this was published.
In the original interview, Schumer is essentially saying his party’s messaging around the government shutdown—an attempt to focus the public’s attention on healthcare—is going well. He even reiterates this in slightly longer form: “But every day we’re getting better and better as the message sinks in more and more deeply.”
We reached out to Senator Schumer for comment, and will update if we hear back.
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