Trump shares apparent AI video promoting ‘medbed’ conspiracy theory
President Donald Trump speaks to the media before departing from the White House on September 26.
By Kevin Liptak, Donie O’Sullivan, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Saturday shared an apparently artificially created video of himself promoting a cure-all bed with origins in conspiratorial corners of the internet.
The video, which has since been deleted, was intended to resemble a Fox News segment on the show hosted by the president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, featured an AI version of Trump promising access to new medical technology. This segment has never aired on the network.
“Every American will soon receive their own medbed card,” said the false rendering of Trump. “With it, you’ll have guaranteed access to our new hospitals led by the top doctors in the nation, equipped with the most advanced technology in the world.”
The “medbed” conspiracy theory has spread during recent years in QAnon circles online. It is a modern manifestation of an older tradition of belief in quack doctors and miracle cures and is rooted in deep distrust of government and medical institutions.
During America’s UFO-spotting craze beginning in the early post-World War Two II period, conspiracy theories emerged that the US government had reverse-engineered technology from alien craft it had secretly retrieved to create advanced healing technologies.
The conspiracy theory that the government kept this healing technology secret, and only provided cures to select elites, played into a more widely held, and still debated belief that the government was withholding information about UFOs from the public.
The QAnon conspiracy theory movement emerged in 2017, and some in those circles have long believed Trump would make available this supposed secret miracle-curing technology.
In the artificial video Trump posted and then deleted, he touts the benefits of the supposed therapy.
“These facilities are safe, modern and designed to restore every citizen to full health and strength,” the false Trump said. “This is the beginning of a new era in American healthcare.”
More rudimentary versions of medbed technology are promoted and sold in New Age and holistic circles online. These vendors often make dubious and unproven promises about items they sell, like healing matts – bed-topper devices that are supposedly infused with magnetic and infrared technology. CNN has at times observed these vendors setting up at events attended by QAnon followers.
The-CNN-Wire
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