Obama Says Trump's AI Video Not Personal

Former President Barack Obama addressed a February social media post by President Donald Trump that featured an AI-generated video depicting Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama with the heads of apes dancing to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." The video, shared on Trump's Truth Social platform on February 5 and later deleted, drew widespread criticism and was linked to claims about 2020 election voting machines.

In an interview with The New Yorker published this week, Obama said he did not view the post as a personal attack on himself. "I don't take it personally," he stated. "I mean, I'm always offended when my wife and kids get dragged into things, because they didn't choose this. That's a line that even people whose politics I deeply reject, I would expect them to care about. I would never talk about somebody's family in that way."

Obama expressed greater concern over other AI-generated content posted by the White House, including images that portrayed war and death like a video game or showed excrement dumped on ordinary citizens. "I'm a fair target in the sense of, yeah, you can feel free to pick on me, because I'm your own size," he said, drawing a distinction between...