A very strange video appearing to show large objects being thrown out of a window at the White House went viral over Labor Day weekend. President Donald Trump was asked about it during a press conference on Tuesday, and he insisted it must be AI. Curiously, White House staff told Time magazine it was just regular maintenance.
The video appears to have been first posted to Instagram on Aug. 31 by an account called WashingtonianProbs.
“One of our community members noticed some things being thrown out of one of The White House’s windows today. Doing some deep Sunday cleaning?” the caption explains, noting the video was submitted anonymously.
The video got enormous pick-up on other sites, including X, Bluesky, Threads, and TikTok. And it came during a weekend when Americans were already wondering about President Trump’s health. Trump’s right hand has been black in recent weeks, and his lack of public appearances over the weekend led to speculation about whether he was on his deathbed.
“No, that’s probably AI-generated”
But Trump held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to announce that the U.S. Space Command headquarters is moving from Colorado to Alabama. And when he took questions, reporter Peter Doocy from Fox News asked him about the objects being tossed out of the window at the White House.
“There’s a video that is circulating online now of the White House, where a window is open to the residents upstairs, and somebody is throwing a big bag out the window. Have you seen this?”
Trump responded, “No, that’s probably AI-generated. Actually, you can’t open the windows. You know why? They’re all heavily armored and bulletproof.” Doocy asked if it was a “fake video.”
“It’s got to be because I know every window up there,” Trump answered. He went on to mention that there are “cameras all over the place” and that First Lady Melania Trump has actually complained about the fact that she can’t open windows at the residence to get some fresh air.
Trump asked Doocy more about the video, and the reporter walked over to show him what it looked like on his phone. The president insisted “those windows are sealed” a couple of times, claiming that nobody can open them.
“If something happens really bad, just blame AI”
Trump appeared ready to move on to the next question before seeming to blame traditional media for the video, saying, “it’s the kind of thing they do.” The video was posted on non-traditional media, though it’s unlikely Trump cares about the distinction.
But it was Trump’s next comments that were arguably the most interesting.
“And one of the problems we have with AI, it’s both good and bad. If something happens really bad, just blame AI,” Trump said, seeming to suggest that if something appears to be a negative in the media, the president will just claim it’s AI.
Trump then doubled down on the idea, even anticipating that he could blame any future scandals on AI.
“But also they create things, you know, it works both ways. If something happens, it’s really bad, maybe I’ll have to just blame AI. But there’s truth to it because I see so many phony things,” Trump said. That’s an odd thing to admit, of course. But Trump is an odd president.
Then the president seemed to pivot into talking about a viral video showing him as a baby and transforming through life into adulthood.
“I saw something, as I was growing up, from the time I was a baby ’til now. I said, ‘Who did that?’ It was AI-generated. So it’s a little bit scary, to be honest with you,” Trump said, “but those windows are all very heavily sealed.”
It seems very likely that Trump is talking about this video, which was originally posted by Trump advisor and social media guru Dan Scavino Jr.
Regular maintenance
What does the video of things being tossed out of the window actually depict? It wasn’t AI, according to Time. The magazine originally published an article on Tuesday that included a quote from an unnamed White House spokesperson reading: “It was a contractor who was doing regular maintenance while the President was gone.”
After Trump made his comments at the press conference about AI, Time shuffled the wording of its story around, giving preference to Trump’s version of events. The article now reads: “Trump’s comments on the viral video came hours after a White House official gave TIME a statement that implied the video’s content was real, and that it showed a contractor doing ‘regular maintenance.'”
It seems like the White House spokesperson did way more than imply the video was real. If there was construction work being done while the president was gone, that would be a perfectly reasonable explanation for what’s happening there.
Un-politically correct
The rest of the press conference on Tuesday was also very odd, including a moment when Doocy asked Trump if he had seen the reports that he was dying. The president initially denied seeing the chatter before immediately correcting himself.
The president, who has declared English as the official language of the U.S., also tried to talk about his tariff policies, saying it was “un-politically correct” for courts to find in his favor. The term, of course, is politically incorrect.
Trump may not be on his deathbed. But his brain is very clearly broken.
English (US) ·