Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting an AI-generated video of himself fighting a tiger in the wake of a fatal attack at Yorkshire Wildlife Park.
The US president initially shared real footage of the incident, which took place on 10 October and involved an Amur tiger attacking William Chapman inside its enclosure.
The clip shows the animal clawing and biting Chapman, although his death is not shown.
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Alongside the video, which he shared with his 13 million Truth Social followers, Trump wrote: “Don’t ever mess with nature! President DJT.”
He later uploaded AI-generated clips of people being attacked by wild animals. His final post took the situation into fictional territory, using AI to cast himself as the tiger’s opponent.
In the clip, a digitally generated Trump runs after the big cat and brings it down. They tussle across the grass before he pulls the tiger up onto its hind legs, with the pair seemingly smiling at the end.
‘Someone take Grandpa’s phone away’
The posts prompted a lot criticism online, with some users questioning the decision to share the original video at all.
Brian Krassenstein, a political commentator, suggested the posts were intended to shift attention away from election polling.
“You know that Trump really wants to distract from reality when he starts posting pictures of men getting eaten by tigers, rather than election poll numbers,” he wrote.
Journalist Andrew Egger also expressed disbelief at the president’s decision to share the footage.
Writing on X, he said: “Why is Donald Trump posting grisly video footage of a person getting mauled to death by a tiger in the UK this weekend? Your guess is as good as mine.”
The response was not limited to individual commentators. The Republicans Against Trump account reacted to the AI wrestling clip with “WTF,” before adding a second jab at Trump: “Someone take Grandpa’s phone away.”
Many others condemned Trump for the unhinged post.