Deepfakes and Distractions | Gosh, it’s really hard to believe that this photo of former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump was taken only six months ago:  Photographer: Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images They look so happy! Trump even admitted as much to Fox News at the time: “I didn’t realize it, how friendly it looked ... I said, ‘Boy, they look like two people [who] like each other.’ And we probably do.”
Trump supposedly had asked Obama to join him for a round of golf during their cordial exchange at President Jimmy Carter’s funeral. But something tells me the 44th president won’t be making a surprise appearance on the first tee during Trump’s upcoming Scotland trip: At this point, maybe you’ve seen the AI-generated video that Trump recently shared on Truth Social, which depicts FBI agents forcing Obama to the ground in the Oval Office and arresting him to the tune of “YMCA.” The video, copped from some random TikTok account with the handle @neo8171, makes one wonder whether the president has a photo album on his phone where he saves deepfakes of his foes for rainy days. How did Trump go from exchanging pleasantries with his predecessor to wanting to lock him up in less than a year? Nia-Malika Henderson says he is trying his best to distract his MAGA base with anything but Jeffrey Epstein. The president’s recent cultural crusades against late-night TV hosts, the Washington Commanders and Rosie O’Donnell run the gambit, but “no political rival seems to capture Trump’s imagination like Obama,” explains Nia-Malika. She sees the deepfake video as a wink back to the birtherism days. “The throughline is that Obama, the nation’s first Black president, is somehow illegitimate,” she writes. Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, helped push the agenda further on Sunday when she alleged (with zero proof) that Obama led a “treasonous conspiracy” to inflate claims around Russian interference in the 2016 election. The fact that the administration is using a conspiracy theory to fight a different conspiracy that Trump helped put in motion is not surprising, Tim O’Brien points out (free read): “Trump and his supporters made ample hay over the years out of right-wing conspiracy yarns that placed Democrats at the center of pedophilia and trafficking rings. Hillary Clinton and Pizzagate evolved into QAnon peddling the notion that a Democratic deep state supported child sex trafficking.” “Trump encouraged the notion among his most fervent supporters that he was here to bust up this stuff, so when Epstein died while being prosecuted on charges of sex trafficking minors, Trump — an old pal of Epstein — jumped into action.” Now that the president finds himself ensnared in a plot of his own making, he has nowhere — not even his golf course in Aberdeen — to hide. Bonus Scandal Watching: After a decade of seeing Trump weather missteps and mistakes — things that would cause other presidents permanent damage — David M. Drucker is skeptical that the Epstein saga will be any different. Perhaps the best distractions aren’t cooked up by conspiracists at all. Instead, good old-fashioned infidelity allegations will do the trick! Google traffic comparing “Coldplay” to “Epstein” certainly supports that theory: “With Coldplaygate on track to become one of the most viral moments of the year, you would think this is the first time in history that a CEO has gotten busted for having what certainly seems to be an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate,” Beth Kowitt writes. “Well, let me tell you — this is far from the truth. As someone who covers corporate America, CEOs doing inappropriate things with inappropriate people has turned into its own mini-beat.” I’m sure the conversations Beth has at dinner parties more than make up for the awkward bio — I cover C-level infidelity for a living! — but the Andy Byron-Astronomer fiasco feels like a whole new level of chaos and treachery, even for corporate America. “In the olden days, a CEO might get fired for an inappropriate office romance after a whistleblower sent in a tip. An investigation would ensue. A statement would be drafted. More often than not, the company would have a chance to strategize before the news went live,” Beth writes. But when the fireable offense comes in the form of a flood of videos and memes on social media, that sequence of events evaporates. “It took the board more than 24 hours to respond to the jumbotron video and another 24 passed before Byron resigned. That created a vacuum, which the internet was only too happy to fill,” Beth says. People went after both Byron and and his Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot on LinkedIn. His wife was found on Facebook. Fake resignation letters made the rounds and bettors on Polymarket went wild over divorce rumors. “You can’t really say the company lost control of the narrative since it never had it to begin with. A playbook does not exist for a CEO’s indiscretions being exposed in such an instantaneous, public and humiliating way. But this is a sign to corporate boards that they better start preparing one,” Beth argues. Read the whole thing. | 
