Donald Trump shared a taunting cartoon amid his escalating trade war with Canada that depicted him towering over Prime Minister Mark Carney on an ice rink and saying, “Get up, governor.” But the US president never posted an animated video version that portrays him violently beating his Canadian counterpart with a hockey stick; the supposed Truth Social post circulating widely online is a fake, created using artificial intelligence by a Trump commentary account on X.
“This is the President of the United States. He’s posting an AI video of himself beating the Canadian Prime Minister with a hockey stick while calling him ‘Governor,'” says a September 8, 2026 post on X. “No semi-rational person looks at this and thinks this is okay or sane behaviour.”
Screenshot from X taken September 8, 2026, with AI logo added by AFP
Similar posts rocketed across X and other platforms, amplified by major Trump critics including Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway, former Republican congressman Joe Walsh, former US ambassador Michael McFaul, former professional hockey player Dominik Hasek and journalist John Harwood. Spanish-speaking commentators also shared it.
Several posts called for the invocation of the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, which provides mechanisms to transfer power if a president is unable to govern (archived here).
The apparent video post from Trump circulated as the US president’s trade dispute with Canada continued to escalate following the breakdown of negotiations on August 21, with Washington and Ottawa imposing retaliatory tariffs and other trade measures.
Trump, whose account on his Truth Social platform is full of AI-generated and otherwise manipulated content, posted a cartoon on September 6 depicting him and Carney in ice hockey uniforms representing their respective countries (archived here). The image portrays Trump standing over a fallen Carney and saying: “Get up, governor.”
Trump has frequently referred to Carney as “governor” on social media, reviving an insult he also directed at former prime minister Justin Trudeau as he jeered about Canada becoming the 51st US state.
Screenshot from Truth Social taken September 8, 2026
But Trump’s post was static. The animated version is a fabrication.
The video does not appear on the US president’s Truth Social account, nor does it show up in publicly available archived captures of his profile. Trump’s Truth and Factba.se, two interactive databases that track his social media activity, also have no record of him sharing such a video.
The manipulated post seems to have originated with “@TrumpDailyPosts,” a commentary account on X unaffiliated with Trump. The account posted it September 7, writing: “President Trump just posted this image on Truth Social and we brought it to life.”
Screenshot from X taken September 8, 2026, with AI logo added by AFP
A watermark on the video says it was “animated by Grok,” X’s AI chatbot.
The Hive Moderation AI detection tool also assessed that the video was “likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content.”
Screenshot from Hive Moderation taken September 8, 2026, with AI logo added by AFP
AFP previously debunked another fake Trump post about Carney here.