Donald Trump drew mockery online for how he responded to supercuts of his verbal slip-ups, gaffes and forgetfulness that Democrats aired during a congressional hearing this week.
The former president ranted on his Truth Social platform late on Tuesday that artificial intelligence “was used by them against me in their videos,” which played during former special counsel Robert Hur’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.
“Can’t do that Joe!” the four-times-indicted Trump said, referring to his successor in the White House, Joe Biden.
But the former president ― who on Monday nicknamed himself “Honest Don” ― offered no evidence to support his claim about AI in the clips, all of which featured real footage.
Hur had been called on to explain his recent report on Biden’s retention of classified materials after his vice presidency, in which he characterised Biden as “well-meaning” but “with a poor memory” — comments that were pounced on by the right to argue that Biden isn’t fit for office.
To counter that narrative, three Democrats at the hearing shared montages of Trump making mistakes.
Representative Jerry Nadler played a video compilation in which Trump mixed up the names of political figures and forgot facts.
Representative Eric Swalwell shared video of Trump trailing off mid-sentence and mispronouncing words.
And Representative Mary Gay Scanlon showed clips of Trump saying that he didn’t remember certain things during depositions.
On social media, critics riffed on the “intelligence” theme of Trump’s AI claim, calling his spin on the videos “desperate.”