Internet outraged over Donald Trump’s ‘disgusting’ AI video response to historic 'No Kings' protests
Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video of himself dumping feces from a fighter jet onto protestors, following US-wide demonstrations against his administration. This latest - but not uncommon - use of AI from the Trump administration has drawn widespread criticism.
Millions of Americans marched against Trump’s administration this weekend, with the “No Kings” march opposing the president’s “authoritarian power grab.”
The 18 October protest, the third mass mobilisation since Trump's return to the White House, drew nearly 7 million people across all 50 states according to organisers. This figure would make it the largest single-day mobilisation against a US president in modern history.
Several Hollywood figures like Jimmy Kimmel, Spike Lee, Robert De Niro and Glenn Close joined the protestors and expressed their opposition to Trump’s presidency and the growing levels of authoritarianism.
Oscar-winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis posted a photo of a “no parking” sign with duct tape covering letters to read “no king.”
She wrote: “In this world of abundance and BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST, it doesn’t matter if this was the MOST people ever turning out in protest, it just matters that we SHOWED UP, STOOD UP, said what we THINK and FEEL and now the HARD work. We have a YEAR to send a real MESSAGE at the BALLOT BOX which is our AMERICAN VOICE, and so, let’s get &$@KING BUSY!”
Instead of presidentially reacting to the peaceful opposition, Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video on Truth Social which showed him wearing a crown, flying a “KING TRUMP” fighter jet, and proceeding to bomb crowds of protestors with brown sludge which clearly looked like feces. All this to Kenny Loggins’ 1986 hit song ‘Danger Zone’ - an apparent reference to the Top Gun movies – and despite the fact that Trump insisted that he is “not a king” on Fox Business ahead of the protests.
The scatological video was shared on the president’s personal and government social media accounts, and joined by Vice President JD Vance’s very own AI video of Trump wearing a crown and cape.
This is not the first time that Trump and his allies have trolled their opponents by posting AI-generated images or ramped up threats using AI – one of the latest being his “Chipocalypse Now” image, which led Euronews Culture to ask: “Is the Trump administration culturally illiterate?”
However, this latest post has been widely blasted online as one of the most “pathetic” attempts to dismiss Trump’s critics.
Many expressed shock over the way the video shows disdain for people exercising their right to protest and the “insulting” dismissal of democracy – as if to prove the protestors’ point.
Social media users accused Trump of having “the maturity and decorum of a 12-year-old boy”, while others commented: “Can’t believe that’s a president of a country.”
Many posts pointed out that Trump’s “childish” and “disgusting” AI post revealed a transparent representation of his genuine feelings toward the American people. "It tells you everything you need to know about what he thinks about the people of America who are, in fact, America," one person commented, while another added: "Him taking a dump on the country is the most honest thing he's ever posted.”
Check out some of the reactions below:
Reacting to the post, former Secretary of State and Trump's Democratic opponent in 2016, Hillary Clinton, wrote: "He's definitely not mad that 7 million Americans came out to protest him yesterday...”
Trump and his social media team regularly utilise AI. Trump has been portrayed as the Pope, a suspiciously jacked Jedi and even Superman.
The use of AI videos and memes is his way of engaging in “memetic warfare” - a term employed by Kurt Sengul, a researcher at Macquarie University in Australia.
Sengul recently spoke to Euronews Culture about Trump’s use of generative AI, which allows the creation of an ecosystem where nothing appears to be serious. Trump’s stance is that if you get upset, it’s because you are “humourless and can’t take a joke,” according to Sengul.
Humour notwithstanding, the outrage at Trump’s recent video seems to be uniting those who affirm that “This is far beneath the Presidency.”
Opinion
Donald Trump’s “No Kings” sewage video is no joke
Chauncey DeVega
Tue, October 21, 2025
President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press aboard Air Force One on Oct. 19, 2025. Alex Wong/Getty Images
On Saturday, the “No Kings” protests against President Donald Trump’s authoritarian actions took place in more than 2,600 locations across the United States. An estimated 7 million people participated, dwarfing even the size of the first event in June, making it the largest single-day of protests in American history.
But instead of addressing their concerns, Trump mocked them.
On Sunday, he shared an AI-generated video “inspired” by “Top Gun,” the iconic 1986 movie starring Tom Cruise. (It even used “Danger Zone,” Kenny Loggins’ song from the film, which the singer demanded be “scrubbed.”) The fake video depicts “King Trump,” complete with a crown, piloting a plane and unleashing what appears to be human waste on No Kings marchers.
Since the president couldn’t stop the marches, he chose to descend into the sewer — and not just with the video.
Trump and other MAGA Republicans predicted violence and mayhem during what was referred to as a “hate America” rally. There was none. Republican Govs. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Greg Abbott of Texas mobilized their states’ National Guard in anticipation of potential violence. They were not needed. Trump and his mouthpieces, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., slurred No Kings as “anti-American” and “hate marches.” They claimed No Kings was poorly attended and filled with paid protesters. In reality, the millions of people who participated in the No Kings marches were simply exercising their constitutional rights.
In a functioning democracy, massive public protests would send a loud, clear signal to the president and his party that they need to recalibrate their positions and behavior to maintain support and avoid being voted out of office, or at least to do a better job of persuading the public to join their side.
But America is no longer a functioning democracy. Norms about legitimacy and governance increasingly do not apply. Trump is an aspiring autocrat who is rapidly expanding and consolidating his power. He views public opinion as largely invalid, embracing instead a maximalist view of presidential power and authority where he is the personal embodiment of the state. The vox populi, the chorus of public opinion, should be silent and ignored unless it is praising him and his MAGA movement.
“In autocratic and illiberal systems, leaders consider demonstrations and street protests to be illegitimate, at least when the aims of the protesters go against the leader’s aims,” said political scientist Susan Stokes, director of the Chicago Center on Democracy at the University of Chicago. “Democratic leaders don’t love demonstrations against their policies and actions, but they tend to hold back on repressing the protests, arresting protesters whose actions are lawful, or using aggressive crowd-control techniques.”
Stokes compared Trump’s behavior to that of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: “They [turned] the same less-lethal weapons against anti-ICE protesters as did the Turkish authoritarian. In response to the No Kings protests, they were less [violent] but still tried to delegitimize the protests, accusing them of all sorts of treacherous commitments.”
Trump’s scatological video was predictably popular among his supporters. On Monday Johnson heaped praise on his tactics. “The president uses social media to make the point,” he said. “You can argue he’s probably the most effective person who’s ever used social media for that.”
Trump’s video was immature and gross. But it was also deeply dangerous. It revealed how the administration and its agents use spectacle and absurdity to reinforce authoritarian control.
The video showcased the president’s taste for “mediated destruction” and “gonzo governance,” said media and communications scholar David Altheide. “His regime seethes contempt for millions of Americans who took [to] the streets in opposing his dictatorial cruelty. The target, the graphic sewage, and the meaning are clear: You are all crap, worthy only of the weaponized poop stream on your heads. The gross humor has reached millions of Americans who oppose Trump.”
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Trump’s message, Altheide said, was clear: “Any person, institution, organization, or entity that opposes Trump and his MAGA movement are outsiders, beyond the pale, symbolic waste, the most vile, who can be deported or otherwise dealt with.”
In a press availability aboard Air Force One on Sunday, the president doubled down: “I looked at the people. They are not representative of this country.”
The president’s AI-generated videos and images have been potent propaganda tools for him to emotionally train and condition the American public into a state of exhaustion, confusion and nihilism where they no longer know what is real. This behavior also reduces serious political and societal matters to digital memes, jokes and ephemera, compromising reality testing and making truth itself unknowable.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has used similar methods to disorient and pacify the Russian public.
The intention is obvious: After a conditioning period, the only certainty — and reality — that remains exists in the form of the Great Leader. Trump has repeatedly warned his MAGA followers to not believe their “lying eyes,” to only trust him — that he possesses great and secret knowledge. He alone can fix it.
And yet Trump’s popularity is slipping. Polls show that more Americans fear for democracy’s future under his leadership. But the Democrats shouldn’t celebrate too soon; they are also unpopular.
Since Trump returned to office, many centrist and liberal political observers, as well as the mainstream media, have been wish-casting. They imagine the American people as a “sleeping giant” that will inevitably rise up against Trumpism and restore democracy. But the truth is dissonant, as Stokes pointed out.
“We live in a strange country in which the government acts as though it’s an autocracy while many in civil society act as though we are still a democracy,” she said. “One way to keep the democracy vital is to exercise our rights. If we act like we live in a country in which rights to free speech and free assembly are protected, then we help keep these rights alive. If we stop exercising our rights they will, like muscles, atrophy.”
The No Kings protests show that resistance to Trumpism is growing. But rallies are just a first step; without sustained action, hope is hollow.
Sir Winston Churchill famously said that “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they’ve tried everything else.” As despair and justified rage fuel authoritarian fake populism both here and abroad, Churchill’s words ring painfully true.
The post Donald Trump’s “No Kings” sewage video is no joke appeared first on Salon.com.
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