How AI Is Weaponizing Voicemail

What A Day

Crooked Media

News, Daily News

4.6 • 12K Ratings

🗓️ 21 July 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As artificial intelligence programs become more widely accessible, so too do increasingly sophisticated deepfake scams that take advantage of the technology. Earlier this month, the State Department confirmed reports that an imposter pretending to be Secretary of State Marco Rubio reached out to at least five high-ranking government officials. It wasn’t the first time a member of the Trump administration had been impersonated by AI; in May, the White House confirmed a similar incident involving Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. But these days, you don’t even have to be a big-name politician to end up on the wrong side of a deepfake scam. If your image and voice exist on the internet, enterprising bad actors might be able to use them against you. Reporter David Gilbert, who covers disinformation and online extremism for Wired, joins us to talk about the risks deepfakes pose to the public and how all of us can protect ourselves. And in headlines: President Donald Trump sued The Wall Street Journal for $20 billion over an article claiming he sent a lewd birthday card to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Israeli troops killed dozens of Palestinians seeking food in Gaza Sunday, and CBS is pulling the plug on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.’

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Monday, July 21st. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What a Day, the show that is
0:06.7	not feeling great about new research showing that chat GPT can induce mental health crises.
0:12.4	Not feeling great about that at all.
0:19.9	On today's show, President Donald Trump sues the Wall Street Journal for at least $10 billion over an article claiming he sent a lewd birthday card to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
0:30.5	And CBS pulls the plug on the late show with Stephen Colbert.
0:34.0	But first, let's talk about artificial intelligence.
0:37.1	Not the weird AI Facebook slop in which Trump
0:40.0	single-handedly rescues a dog from a flood. No, today we're talking about deepfakes. This month,
0:46.5	the State Department confirmed reports that an imposter reached out to at least five high-ranking
0:51.1	government officials claiming to be Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
0:54.8	The contacts included a U.S. senator, a governor, and a handful of foreign ministers.
0:59.3	And the imposter used texts, signal messages, and most concerningly, voicemail.
1:04.8	And it's not the first time a member of the Trump administration has been impersonated by AI.
1:09.5	Here's Fox News back in May.
1:11.3	Federal authorities are investigating efforts to impersonate White House chief of staff,
1:16.6	Susie Wiles.
1:18.0	The Wall Street Journal reporting that an unknown suspect was acting as Wiles over calls and texts.
1:23.5	To big-time Republicans and business executives, the impersonator reportedly was asking for cash and pardon advice.
1:31.8	Reports also say AI may have been involved to imitate her voice.
1:36.6	The pardon advice reference, one unnamed lawmaker says the Wiles impersonator asked him to make a list of people for the president to pardon,
1:44.7	which, knowing the actual people Trump has already actually pardoned, is worrying.
1:50.0	In fact, all of this is worrying because, yes, deep fakes are very bad for our politics.
	...

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