Photo: Getty Images North America
Hakeem Jeffries blasted President Donald Trump after he posted a racist deepfake video of the House minority leader and his colleague, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, amid the looming government shutdown.
Trump shared the AI-manipulated video on social media Monday (September 29) just hours after meeting with congressional leaders, including Jeffries, Schumer, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, about averting a government shutdown.
The video shows Jeffries wearing a sombrero and mustache while Schumer’s voice is faked to claim Democrats are trying to “replace” Black and Latino voters with undocumented immigrants.
"There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore… Not even Black people want to vote for us anymore. Even Latinos hate us, so we need new voters… if we give all these illegal aliens free health care, we might be able to get them on our side," Schumer says in the doctored video. “They can’t even speak English, so they won’t realize we’re just a bunch of woke pieces of s***… until they learn English and realize they hate us too.”
Jeffries issued a scathing response to the racist video on X, formerly Twitter.
“Bigotry will get you nowhere,” Jeffries said. “Cancel the Cuts. Lower the Cost. Save Healthcare. We are NOT backing down.”
The House minority leader also posted a photo of Trump with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, adding, “This is real.”
Schumer also responded on X, saying, “If you think your shutdown is a joke, it just proves what we all know: You can’t negotiate. You can only throw tantrums.”
The government shutdown deadline is Tuesday (September 30) at midnight. A funding bill must be passed before the deadline to avert a shutdown that would disrupt operations across federal agencies and harm workers and public services.
Trump's White House meeting with congressional leaders on Monday ended in a stalemate. Republican leaders have opposed Democratic efforts to tie health care provisions to the spending bill.
“More than 20 million Americans are on the brink of experiencing dramatically increased premiums, co-pays and deductibles because of the Republican refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits,” Jeffries said Monday at the White House. “Working-class Americans, their health care—that’s what we’re fighting to preserve, to defend, and to strengthen.”
Democratic leaders are urging Trump to drop the political theater and focus on avoiding a national crisis.
“He’s the decision maker,” Schumer said Monday. “He can avoid a shutdown.”
This article references a known deepfake. The video in question is artificially generated and false. It does not depict real events or people in truthful situations. Deepfakes are increasingly used to mislead, and we’re here to make sure you’re informed, not fooled.
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