Trump posts fake AI-video showing Obama being arrested with ‘YMCA' and meme turned hate symbol
The July 20 post on social was a TikTok video by an account named "neo8171," with a montage of Democratic elected officials saying "no one is above the law." While it is unclear where the clips were from, Democrats have used that phrase when talking about Trump's criminal cases, including an arrest in Georgia and a felony conviction in New York.
The video then shows Pepe the Frog, a popular internet meme that was added to a hate symbol database during the 2016 election.
As "YMCA" starts to play, the video shows Trump and Obama sitting in the Oval Office, and an artificially rendered scene shows FBI agents dragging Obama out of his chair and cuffing his hands behind his back. The fake video then shows Obama in an orange jumpsuit in jail. A representative for Obama declined to comment about the fake AI video.
Trump and Pepe the Frog: 2016 campaign turned meme political. Then it became a hate symbol
#ArrestObama trends on Truth Social after Tulsi Gabbard claims
On July 18, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard issued a press release saying she had evidence that the Obama administration after the 2016 election produced "politicized intelligence that was used as the basis for countless smears seeking to delegitimize President Trump's victory."
In 2020, a Republican-led, bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee backed the conclusion of the intelligence agencies that found Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump. Trump had long said the investigation into his campaign was a hoax.
Ranking Member on the Intelligence Committee Rep. Jim Himes, D-Connecticut, said Gabbard's new claim is a "dangerous lie," while speaking on CBS News' "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," on July 20. He said Gabbard is using a "sleight of hand" by focusing on intelligence about Russia's failed voting infrastructure manipulation rather than Russia's meddling to discredit Trump's 2016 Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Appearing on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," Gabbard said she intended to send her findings to the Department of Justice and the FBI for criminal referral. Trump also shared excerpts from Gabbard's interviews to Truth Social.
'As is always the case, President Trump was right about the Obama-Biden administration's clear involvement in the greatest witch hunt in American history and the genesis of the decade-long hoax saga that tore our nation apart and undermined the will of the people," White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in an emailed statement. "The President and his entire administration are committed to unearthing wrongdoing and holding any individual accountable for this gross abuse of power and blatant conspiracy against President Trump and his supporters.'
Pepe the Frog became political, then hate symbol, during 2016 election
The frog doodle in clown accessories that flashes in the video is known as Pepe the Frog, and its appearance in Trump's social media posts has sparked interest before.
Pepe the Frog started as a character from a comic series, "Boy's Club" by Matt Furie in 2005, according to Know Your Meme.
While the somewhat sad-looking frog did not have racist or antisemitic origins, its proliferation through the internet as a meme led to its adaptation into something of a symbol for single men who felt they were on the social outskirts, Know Your Meme editor Brad Kim told the New York Times in 2016. But Kim said it became political when Trump shared a Trump-ified version of Pepe in October 2015.
"Pepe plugged into the ideology of the alt-right because it was a reaction against the people they call 'normies,'" Kim told the New York Times. "Pepe had been a symbol of the disenfranchised, social outcasts. It was Trump's natural audience."
In 2016, the Anti-Defamation League added Pepe the Frog to its list of hate symbols, though the organization notes many uses of this meme are still not rooted in bigotry or hate.
"The number of 'alt right' Pepe memes has grown, a tendency exacerbated by the controversial and contentious 2016 presidential election," Pepe's ADL page states. "However, because so many Pepe the Frog memes are not bigoted in nature, it is important to examine use of the meme only in context."
Contributing: Kevin Johnson, Kristine Phillips, USA TODAY
Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@gannett.com. Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @kinseycrowley.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump posts video of Obama being arrested on Truth Social. It is fake

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
Trump is trying to ‘cajole' Powell to lower interest rates: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick discusses how President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's sparred over renovation costs for the 'Fed Mahal' on 'The Ingraham Angle.'


San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Planned Parenthood closes 5 Northern California clinics, citing Trump budget bill
President Donald Trump's budget cuts to Medicaid have forced Planned Parenthood Mar Monte to shutter five clinics across Northern California and the Central Coast, including one in South San Francisco, the group said Thursday. The GOP-led federal spending bill that Trump signed into law earlier this month eliminated federal Medicaid funding for any type of medical care to organizations that perform abortions. Mar Monte is the largest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the country, with health care centers from Bakersfield, the Bay Area, Stockton and Sacramento. The now-shuttered facilities also include San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Gilroy and Madera. The closures represent the first wave of how the recent federal budget cuts will have real-life consequences for health clinics across the country — particularly for low-income Americans. They are also a crushing blow to a state that set it up to be an abortion haven after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. In the year after the decision, political leaders in California — led by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-controlled Legislature — passed more than a dozen new laws and invested more than $200 million to increase access across the state. Thursday's announcement drives home the extent of the federal government's tremendous power to impact abortion access. Roughly 80% of Mar Monte's patients received Medi-Cal, California's version of Medicaid. Ten million people are expected to lose their health insurance because of nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over the next decade in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Meanwhile, the wealthiest Americans will receive a disproportionate share of the tax cuts funded by those cuts, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. In just one week since Mar Monte stopped billing Medicaid, the Planned Parenthood affiliate with 35 locations said it saw 5,000 patients — amounting to about $1.7 million in care costs it covered without reimbursement — Mar Monte Chief of Staff Andrew Adams told the Chronicle Thursday. 'It's just not sustainable,' said Adams. 'We can't keep our doors open if we continue doing that.' Mar Monte said the funding law also forced it to end services in family medicine, behavioral health and prenatal care. The Planned Parenthood affiliate estimates it will lose $100 million in annual revenue from care that can no longer be reimbursed under the law because they provide abortion care. Americans tend to support abortion rights, according to public polling. A May 2025 Gallup Poll found that 51% of respondents described themselves as 'pro choice' while 43% described themselves as 'pro life.'Of those respondents who said they were 'dissatisfied' with the nation's abortion polices, 42% said they would like to see them made 'less strict' while 14% wanted them to be 'stricter.'


Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
Bloomberg Daybreak Asia: One Week Left For Trade Talks
The US and Japan this week reached what President Donald Trump called the largest trade deal in history after Tokyo pledged to set up a $550 billion fund for investment into the US, details of which remain obscure. The lack of clarity about how the fund will work adds to questions about the viability of the agreement, which imposes 15% tariffs on Japanese cars and other goods. While the start date and other basic elements are still unknown, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned this week that the US would monitor implementation and bump the rate up to 25% if Trump isn't satisfied. In his latest column, Bloomberg Opinion's Gearoid Reidy writes that after three months, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba finally has his trade deal. Gearoid joins us to explain why it may be Ishiba's final act. Plus - the S&P 500 inched to a new record Thursday - its 10th in 19 days - driven by tech gains that papered over a broader weakness as most stocks in the benchmark dropped. The S&P 500 has surged 28% from its April lows as investors grew optimistic that President Donald Trump's tariff war won't hurt the economy and corporate earnings as initially feared. Meantime, South Korea's trade ministry said Friday that Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick reaffirmed their will to reach a mutually beneficial trade agreement before August 1st deadline. For more on the economic impact of ongoing negotiations, we heard from Janet Henry, Global Chief Economist at HSBC. She speaks with Bloomberg's Shery Ahn and Haidi Stroud-Watts on The Asia Trade.