The daughter of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. slammed a deepfake video recreating her late father's likeness to endorse Republican candidate Donald Trump over his challenger, Democratic VP Kamala Harris, in the 2024 election.
The circulating video featured an AI-generated image of MLK Jr. as he appeared around the height of his civil rights activism during the 1960s until his assassination on April 4, 1968.
An imitation of the Southern Baptist minister's voice orated:
"We’ve been told again and again that we cannot vote for the man that did more for the Black community than any other president."
“If a Black man dares speak out in support of Donald Trump, a Democrat is always there to call that man an Uncle Tom, a house Negro, or even worse.”
The voice continues:
“We’ve been used by the Democrats. For decades, we’ve supported the party of slavery and Jim Crow.”
The video was initially posted on February 1, 2024, by Ramble Rants, a member of a trollish pro-MAGA online collective called the “Dilley Meme Team."
You can watch the clip here.
The false representation of MLK Jr. supporting an ex-president who associates himself with extremist groups and white nationalists was a mockery of MLK Jr.'s legacy of advancing civil rights for people of color through nonviolent resistance against legalized discrimination.
The video was reshared by the pro-Trump account @MAGAResource on Sunday, just days away from Election Day.
On Monday, MLK Jr.'s daughter Bernice King demanded the video be taken down.
She tagged @MAGAResource and wrote:
"Delete this, @MAGAResource. It’s vile, fake, irresponsible, and not at all reflective of what my father would say."
"And you gave no thought to our family."
A link to the post that @MAGAResource shared of the video is now defunct, indicating the video was removed.
However, the video that Rumble Rants posted back in February remains active.
Social media users were appalled by the offensive deepfake video.
Many users agreed Bernice King should take legal action.
The Trump campaign has shared controversial videos by the "Dilley Meme Team" to promote Trump's MAGA agenda.
One meme video Trump shared in August was a parody of Alanis Morissette's 1996 song "Ironic" with a verse implying that Democratic candidate Kamala Harris performed oral sex for political gain.
Another clip Trump posted on his Truth Social platform was one suggesting the creation of a "unified Reich." It was later removed by the Trump campaign after much backlash.
According to the BBC, members of the "Dilley Meme Team" go by pseudonyms on social media, but the collective's founder was identified as Brenden Dilley, a podcaster who bills himself as "an entrepreneur, life coach, self-help author, and fitness expert."
He reportedly ran a failed congressional campaign in a district in Arizona in 2018.
While there is no evidence of the Trump campaign funding the collective, Dilley and his company have contributed roughly $7,000 to Trump’s campaign, his political action committees, and the Republican National Committee, according to Federal Election Commission records.
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