New data from Cybernews reveals that the digital landscape for U.S. officials is becoming increasingly crowded with AI-generated impostors.
Over the past two years, researchers identified 156 specific instances of deepfakes targeting high-ranking government figures, including the President, Cabinet members, and members of Congress.
The study, which pulled from over 2,000 cases in the Resemble.ai database starting from March 2024, shows that while deepfakes are spreading, they are hitting a very specific group of people.
Donald Trump is at the center of this digital surge, accounting for 90 of the 156 recorded instances. This means the President represents roughly 58% of all deepfake activity in the dataset.
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Interestingly, the research notes that Trump’s numbers are unique because he frequently shares deepfakes of himself. Notable examples include a November 2026 Truth Social post showing him with a “TRUMP 2028” sign and an AI-generated image released by the White House depicting him as the pope.
The concentration of these incidents remains remarkably tight. Following Trump, Senator Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance were targeted 13 and 12 times, respectively. Together, these three men account for nearly 74% of the entire dataset.
On the Democratic side, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leads with nine instances, including a widely circulated deepfake shared by Chris Cuomo involving a fictional debate over a clothing advertisement. Other Democrats frequently appearing in the data include Amy Klobuchar with six instances and Hakeem Jeffries with five.
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While the raw numbers suggest a heavy tilt toward one side of the aisle—with Republicans making up 119 of the 156 cases—the data shifts when the President is removed from the equation. Without Trump’s 90 cases, the distribution becomes much more even: Democrats actually account for 56% of the remaining incidents.
The study also highlights a “visibility gap” in who gets targeted. While one in five Cabinet members has been featured in a deepfake, only 1.6% of the 435 members of the House of Representatives have been targeted. Out of 602 total officials analyzed, only 23 were targeted at least once.
This suggests that unless a politician is a household name, they are currently unlikely to be the subject of a deepfake, as the technology continues to focus on the most recognizable faces in American power.
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