Hours after meeting House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at the White House to discuss the looming government shutdown, Trump posted an AI-generated video on Truth Social and X depicting Jeffries wearing a sombrero and a mustache, with mariachi music playing, while a fake Schumer voice argued for undocumented immigrants to get “free healthcare” so Democrats could win their votes.
The video was posted the same day as a face-to-face negotiating session with both leaders, and it used an ethnic stereotype to mock Jeffries rather than engage with the Democrats' demand to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies. Trump posted a second sombrero video of Jeffries later that week.
Jeffries responded on X: “Bigotry will get you nowhere.” The next day he told Trump: “the next time you have something to say about me, don't cop out through a racist and fake AI video.” Schumer wrote: “If you think your shutdown is a joke, it just proves what we all know: You can't negotiate. You can only throw tantrums.” Vice President JD Vance laughed off the criticism at a White House briefing, saying, “Oh, I think it's funny,” and promising that “if you help us reopen the government, the sombrero memes will stop.”
The incident showed Trump's willingness to use AI-generated content to mock political opponents with ethnic stereotypes, even leaders he had just met at the White House for official business.
Correction (October 14, 2026): This entry previously quoted Schumer as saying, “It just proves you can't negotiate. You can only throw tantrums”; his full post, quoted above, began “If you think your shutdown is a joke.” It also described the fake Schumer voice as “stereotyped”; the sources describe it as a fake, AI-generated voice, and the racial stereotyping they describe is the sombrero and mustache depiction of Jeffries.