The state-run media recently went nuts over an AI-generated image of Donald Trump in a Pittsburgh Steelers uniform. That’s NOT the kind of “deepfake” that you should worry about this election. But Glenn warns that REAL deepfakes WILL be a problem for elections eventually. They have already been deployed in elections around the world to mislead people, usually just a day or two before the election. So, Glenn and Justin Haskins, the co-author of his new book, “Propaganda Wars,” give a crucial tip that will help you avoid the REAL misinformation that may come in the form of deepfakes this November.
Order your copy of "Propaganda Wars" at http://GlennsNewBook.com
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Justin Haskins is with me. And we're talking about Propaganda Wars.
And the things that are happening currently now, that we pretty much predict in this book.
But one other thing that hasn't happened yet. But usually doesn't happen. At least in the last year, until the last one or two days.
It takes you about two days, for a deepfake to circulate, and then it's exposed as a deepfake.
All right? So prepare yourself for the October surprise of a deepfake. We'll tell you about it, where it's been done here in the last few months.
In just a minute.
The election. This is from page 150 thine.
The election challenges ahead are daunting. We've already entered the era of election fraud out of the past six presidential elections. Three have resulted in roughly half the country. Believing its candidate of choice, is screwed to the benefit of the other half of America.
If that trend continues, the United States will not survive very long.
There are good reasons to worry as well.
Many news outlets. Only provide viewers, listeners and readers what they want to hear.
Not well-established affects. Some government agencies. Laughter. And courts have been weaponized to serve political purposes.
Technological changes are occurring, that will undoubtedly alter the way people think about elections. As I explain in chapter four.
Algorithms and artificial intelligence are dramatically changing the way we experience and think about the news. They are shaping our thoughts and our feelings, often in unhealthy ways.
That further detach people against reality.
When it comes to our elections, the most dangerous threat of all. Is the one we're losing our ability to trust, what we see, and hear.
As noted in the previous chapter, deepfake images, audio, and video, are reaching a level of sophistication, that far surpasses anything we've seen before.
Now, here's how the mainstream media is dealing with this. Over the weekend, Donald Trump released a picture of himself, as a football player.
Okay?
With what is it? The Green Bay Packers. No. Pittsburgh Steelers. Yeah, okay. So the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Now, this is clearly not him.
If you look at his arms, he is quite ripped.
JUSTIN: I don't know, Glenn. I don't know.
STU: That's what the picture says. I don't know. So it's him currently, in his 70s.
GLENN: Right. It's ridiculous.
STU: They don't employ any 70-year-old football players.
GLENN: Okay. So this is what the mainstream media is pointing out.
Well, that's a deepfake. That's not the type of deepfake, that you should worry about.
That's not deep. That's just fake. Okay?
Now, when you see your favorite or most hated politician say or do something. Where you can't be sure, it really is him, or her.
The uncertainty will grow, as it will in this election, and the coming years.
At some point, there is going to be a deepfake crisis.
And it could spark severe economic or political instability.
It's avoidable, but only if people soon understand the threats that we are faced with, before it's too late.
Americans also, need to be better prepared to know how to tell the difference between truth and lies, and to recognize the threats posed by large institutions, and powerful politicians, who benefit from the crisis, just as I outlined in chapter three.
Okay.
So then I go into, in this chapter of the book. I go into a couple of things that are happening right now, that have happened in this election in America, that are not game-changing.
But very confusing. One of them happened in I think New Hampshire.
Yeah. New Hampshire.
And it was very confusing.
But it wasn't game-changing.
And people caught it, thank God, in time.
Now, this election, is happening all over the Western world. There are more elections happening around the world, than ever in human history.
This year. We're one of the last. So have deepfakes been used, in the last year?
Yes.
Warning, usually in the last day or two.
Because there's not enough time, to combat it.
So right before everybody goes in for the final day, something is released on one of the candidates, and it shows them, doing something or saying something.
This -- this actually happened in Chicago, in 2023.
JUSTIN: That's right. Yeah. There was a mayoral race there. That was a really contentious race between a more socialistic candidate named Brandon Johnson who nobody thought was going to win. And the establishment candidate Paul Vallas.
Right before one of the front rounds of primary voting, a deepfake audio of Vallas came out, who was -- who was white. Brandon Johnson is African-American.
Basically, talking flippantly about back in his day, cops used to shoot people all the time, and nobody cared.
GLENN: Yeah. He said, cops in my day, would kill 17 or 18 people, and nobody would even bat an eye.
JUSTIN: That's right. And it supposedly came from this news source called Chicago lakefront news.
It was presented as a news story.
It happened right before the primary.
None of it was true. It was a deepfake audio.
None of it was true.
It was circulated widely, right before the election, and Brandon Johnson, ended up doing a lot better than people thought. And then in subsequent voting, because they do multiple rounds. Subsequent voting, he ended up winning!
And it surprised everybody. Now, Brandon Johnson was the, you know, anti-establishment. Socialist candidate. Presented himself to the African-American community, as I'm going to represent you.
Here you have an audio of the other candidate, saying I don't care if black people get killed by cops. Now, we don't know. Because there's no way of actually tracking the specific, you know, correlation, between this and the outcome of the race.
Just not possible.
But that's the whole point.
It creates all sorts of uncertainty, and confusion.
And we don't know how many people were impacted by this.
Maybe not enough to swing the election.
But maybe it was enough to swing the election.
GLENN: I'm going to say something that I want you to remember, in case a deepfake comes out two days before the election. Three days. Or one day before the election.
Even if it is against Kamala Harris, and it is just so juicy, that he's like, are you kidding me?
There she is with Fidel Castro, saying, yeah. We're going to take down the United States of America, and make it Communist. Do not believe it.
Do not believe it in the last couple of takes. It is happening.
Slovakia, the same thing happened this year. This was an audio recording, that was posted to Facebook. On it, were two voices.
One, who leads the liberal progressive Slovakian party. And the other from the daily newspaper. Over there.
They appeared to be discussing how to rig the election, partly by buying votes from the country's marginalized Roma minority.
Okay. The candidate immediately said, that's not us.
This is -- this is manipulated tape. This is AI. It's not us.
It was posted during a 48-hour moratorium, ahead of the polls.
This is a moratorium, where the press and the candidates are not allowed to say anything.
They're not allowed to speak ahead of the poll's opening.
The media outlets and the politicians are supposed to be silent.
That meant under their rules, the post couldn't really be widely debunked.
It was all over the media.
But no one could say anything about it.
Even if you could say something about it, two days is not enough, to reduce the damage.
Especially, honestly, if it came out against Donald Trump. Because the press would -- I mean, the press isn't going to do that anyway.
It would rely on people, that know how to tell the difference between a deepfake and not a deepfake. And I don't have that expertise. Do you?
JUSTIN: No. Now, what's really important about this. Especially as it pertains to Donald Trump. Is that the left, and this is the big theme of this book.
Is that the left, the elites, they're constantly preparing for all these different crazy scenarios, that could happen.
Not just deepfakes. But all sorts of things.
Then they use those golden opportunities. As prince Charles once talked about with COVID.
To reset the world.
This is what they do.
Well, when it comes to deepfakes. We know they are war gaming this out.
We know it. We talked about it in the book. We outline all the things they're doing.
They held a huge event called the deepfake dilemma. Earlier this year.
Where they prepared for -- they got all these government officials together. Democrats. And people in the media.
Alex Whit from MSNBC was there. And they held this event. To war game what happens, hypothetically, if a deepfake, benefiting Donald Trump, produced by Russia.
Occurs just before the election, showing election fraud.
But there really isn't election fraud. Or telling voters, in a swing state, the wrong time or place to vote.
What -- how are we going to handle this?
What are we going to do?
And their solution to it was, we need to set up a network, of trusted experts. That you can go to. If you're a local election official. In the event of a deepfake crisis. So we can talk to you, and we will tell you what the answer is to these problems. All the people involved in this. Are crazy, anti-Trump.
And scary anti-Trump.
One of the main people is a guy named miles --
STU: He was their Trump aide at one point, wasn't he?
He was in the department of -- he was the chief staff at the Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration.
STU: Right. Right. Yeah.
GLENN: When he was in the Trump administration, he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, anonymously saying I'm the leader of the resistance inside the Trump administration.
Then he wrote a book, anonymously, about it. Then he wrote another book, not anonymously. Admitting, that he was the guy all along.
He was the big hero on the left. Because he was working inside the government.
In the national security, to thwart the duly elected president of the United States. They have no problem, as we have now seen, with -- with -- they have no problem with it.
JUSTIN: And he's one of the leaders of these he people, who is preparing for this crisis that might break out at any moment! So what happens if this does occur? Even if it's a deepfake that doesn't matter.
Our local election officials are being trained to go to people like that. For the answer to the question, at the final hour.
Well, I -- do you trust that? I certainly don't trust Miles Taylor and people like that to have the right answer. This is -- this could potentially be, and we don't know. Maybe no deepfake crisis happens. But if it does, this is incredibly disturbing.
I mean, talk about unrest. Talk about people questioning the validity of the election, if something like this happens.
If I'm -- the thing I am most worried about is this.
GLENN: And you might think, well, we're so close to the election. No, no, no.
This is when that happens.
This is one of the reasons, we -- we released this book, right on top of the election.
Because there is things in it, you need to know.
Right now. And I must want to risk you forgetting about it.
Deepfakes are really important and very destructive.
And have already happened in this election cycle, with massive ramifications in other countries.
Four billion people voted this year.
And several places, several countries, deepfakes, have been used to sway the election, in the opposite direction, just days before the election.
Be very, very careful.