This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Wednesday, October 22nd.

I'm Bridget Bergen, filling in for Brian today.

On Saturday, protesters in over 2,500 cities across the United States participated in the

No Kings movement, a network of progressive organizations that are fighting against the Trump

administration's policies. The movement accuses President Trump of acting more like a monarch

than an elected official. In response, President Trump

characteristically took to social media, but this time it was a little different. The president

hosted an AI-generated video depicting himself as a crown-wearing fighter pilot flying over American

cities and dropping excrement on the No King's protesters.

The video is just the latest example of a shift by the president who was using more and more fake

imagery to misrepresent his achievements in office and attack his perceived opponents, sometimes

with degrading images and audio. Our next guest argues the era of AI propaganda is here,

and President Trump is an enthusiastic participant.

Joining us now is Stuart A. Thompson,

reporter at the New York Times covering online influence,

Stewart.

Welcome to WNYC.

Thanks having me.

Stuart, the messaging we saw from the president over the weekend, that AI-generated video of him in a crown dumping excrement on protesters from a fighter jet, you note that it's actually nothing new.

So can you take us back to the origin of Trump's fascination with these videos and images? Yeah, his use has really increased along with the technology as it's gotten more popular.

And he really started using it at the very beginning of his campaign to be reelected. There was a moment during the debate with Kamala Harris,

...