WASHINGTON, DC, USA –– White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt answers questions from journalists on Jan. 28, 2025.
WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration increasingly welcomes vloggers and social media influencers into press briefings and the Oval Office, established outlets like the Associated Press find themselves excluded from the century-old press pool, sparking controversy about what "transparency" truly means.
Joshua Sukoff is a photojournalist from Long Island, New York. He is currently studying journalism at Northwestern University.
There's been an emerging pattern of the Trump administration embracing AI-generated propaganda art in official communications.
On July 10, the White House’s official social media accounts posted a mock movie poster depicting President Donald Trump as Superman, soaring through the air in the Man of Steel’s iconic tights and cape. The meme, emblazoned with the slogan, “THE SYMBOL OF HOPE. TRUTH. JUSTICE. THE AMERICAN WAY. SUPERMAN TRUMP,” was intended to capitalize on the buzz around a new Superman film. Instead, it was met with widespread ridicule; one congressman quipped that Trump is “literally Lex Luthor.” But, while easy to write off as a one-time social media gaff, the bizarre incident wasn’t an isolated one. It highlights an emerging pattern of the administration embracing AI-generated propaganda art in official communications.
A Pattern of AI-Generated Fantasies
The “Superman Trump” poster was only the latest in a series of fantastical images pushed by the Trump White House. On May 4 (Star Wars Day), the White House celebrated by sharing an AI-crafted image of a muscle-bound Trump dressed as a Jedi, brandishing a red lightsaber. In the picture, posted with a message mocking the “Radical Left,” Trump poses heroically amid bald eagles and American flags. A few weeks earlier, after the death of Pope Francis, Trump’s accounts shared an AI-generated photo of the president seated on an ornate throne in papal vestments. Trump had jokingly mused that he’d like to be the next pope, and his social media team illustrated the notion for real in a move that Catholic leaders blasted as disrespectful. Back in February, the White House even posted an image of Trump wearing a king’s crown (captioned “LONG LIVE THE KING!”) to celebrate his victory over New York City’s proposed congestion pricing toll.
Taken together, these official posts form a propaganda collage casting Trump as everything from savior of Metropolis to head of the Church. All were AI-generated or digitally altered images, churned out at the push of a button. The President, for his part, has sometimes tried to distance himself, telling reporters “[he] had nothing to do with” the pope image and that “somebody made a picture of [him] … maybe it was AI.” But the content was disseminated by his own verified White House channels. The goal is clear: to flood the internet with memeified heroics, bolstering Trump’s image in a cheap, viral way.
Why Turning the Presidency into a Meme Is Problematic
Critics argue that this embrace of AI fantasy images undermines the dignity of the presidency and erodes trust in official communication. Former Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele lambasted the pope photo, saying it “affirms how unserious and incapable [Trump] is.” Even some Trump supporters were taken aback; one commentator remarked that the White House account had become “just a slop engagement farm” chasing clicks. By trafficking in doctored images of the President as a comic-book hero or religious icon, the administration blurs the line between governance and marketing, inviting comparisons to authoritarian cults of personality. During the 1930s, dictators like Hitler and Stalin tightly controlled art and imagery to project their own ideological myths; disturbingly, Trump’s social media stunts echo a 21st-century version of that playbook.
There is also a deeper danger in normalizing AI-generated false images. While a buff Trump Jedi might seem like harmless fun, the ease of producing realistic fake visuals opens the door to more insidious disinformation. “The ability to easily and inexpensively generate false supporting imagery is new and dangerous for voters,” warns Darrell West, a Brookings Institution scholar. Such content can portray people in a false light and fuel false narratives that mislead the public. In fact, Trump’s allies have already used AI to fabricate scenes of opponents (for example, fake photos of Kamala Harris at a communist rally) to sway opinions. When the White House itself spreads AI-created manipulations, it further normalizes deception and erodes the public’s ability to discern truth. At a time when society is grappling with the “deepfake” phenomenon, the President’s meme campaign sends a troubling signal that facts and images are malleable if they serve a political narrative.
A Better Alternative: Supporting Real Art and Truth
Rather than relying on AI gimmicks to burnish its message, the government could take a more principled and productive approach by investing in authentic artistry and honest communication. There is historical precedent for positive leadership in this realm. During the Great Depression, the U.S. government (under FDR) launched the Works Progress Administration (WPA) arts programs, hiring over 10,000 artists to create public murals, posters, photographs, and more. These federal art projects not only kept artists employed during hard times but also enriched American culture and community life. Importantly, the New Deal administration valued art’s role in democracy—fostering a genuine national identity through creativity—as a democratic counterpoint to the propaganda machines of totalitarian regimes. The artwork produced under the WPA wasn’t about deifying a single leader; it was about reflecting the people’s stories and uplifting citizens with truthful, resonant art.
That lesson feels urgent today. Government leaders should champion human creativity and factual integrity in their messaging, not turn their social media into a circus of AI-manufactured self-portraits. Imagine if, instead of churning out “Superman Trump” memes, the administration commissioned talented young illustrators, designers, or satirists to contribute to public campaigns. Not only would this lend a personal, authentic touch far more meaningful than a generic algorithm’s output, but it would also support working artists at a time when AI threatens many creative jobs. In an era of rampant synthetic media, authenticity has real currency. By choosing real art over artificial imagery, the White House could still be creative and engaging without descending into farce or misleading theatrics. Ultimately, a presidency that respects truth and artistry would do far more to inspire the public than one that plays make-believe on the internet.
Bennett Gillespie is a student at Duke University and a council member of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. He is also an intern with the Fulcrum.
The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists. To learn about the many NextGen initiatives we are leading, click HERE.
I used to enjoy doing my schoolwork in my college newspaper’s office. There is a series of tall library shelves filled with dusty books held together by loose binding that contain every article printed since our inception in the 1930s.
The book covers have lost the sharpness of their hues over time, and the thin old papers inside are yellow and torn, but inside those books lie almost 100 years of articles that tell the stories and history of the college town, Isla Vista, and UC Santa Barbara, as written by student journalists at the Daily Nexus.
One day, as I started perusing the books, the tall dusty bookshelves transformed into a historical archive of their own right. There are thousands of stories in those books that show how students from the Black Student Union protested on campus to create the Black Studies Department in 1968, how anti-Vietnam War protests led to the burning of a Bank of America building in Isla Vista, how people from the unincorporated town of Isla Vista galvanized to create a local government after being reliant on county representatives for decades. At that moment, as I was reading these stories, I realized how all local newspapers hold the history of their community within their pages.
Washington Post's Alan Barth once wrote, 'Journalism is the first rough draft of history.' I understood what he meant in that moment with much more clarity.
But if journalism does serve as the first rough draft of history, biased coverage of marginalized communities doesn't just harm those communities today — it distorts the historical record that future generations inherit. It is then the responsibility of journalists to regularly consider how they immortalize the communities they report on, ensuring that all people’s stories are preserved in their local archives with dignity and humanity.
Journalism is by no means an industry unfamiliar with biased coverage of communities of color. In the wake of the racial reckoning after George Floyd’s murder, several journalism outlets, including the L.A. Times and the Baltimore Sun, released editorials taking accountability for systemic bias in their coverage of communities of color.
Both the L.A. Times and the Baltimore Sun offered examples of moments in the past and present where their coverage propelled harmful misrepresentations in stories that included Black, Indigenous, Latino, or Asian communities. The L.A. Times wrote that during the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots, when “sailors on leave from wartime” attacked Mexican Americans in L.A. wearing the Zoot Suit, the Times “blamed the victims instead of their assailants.”
“When First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt suggested that the rioting might have grown out of racial discrimination toward Mexican Americans, The Times vehemently denied that was possible, asserting in an editorial, ‘We like Mexicans and we think they like us,’” the editorial stated.
The Baltimore Sun wrote about their history of taking law enforcement’s word over that of Baltimore residents for decades, even as “the city of Baltimore adopted a ‘zero tolerance’ style of policing in the late ’90s.” Later, the Department of Justice found that their policy led to repeated violations of constitutional and statutory rights.
“Shortly after the diary release, in 1991, the vicious beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers was recorded on video and broadcast across the country, and white Americans could no longer deny that Black people were being mistreated by law enforcement,” their article stated. “Yet, The Sun would continue to take the word of local law enforcement over Baltimore residents in its reporting for decades to come, largely without question.”
A key function of journalism is to hold authorities accountable and question their actions. It was a mission of journalism; the Sun acknowledged that it had failed to deliver in the context of police brutality in Baltimore.
Journalism is often primary source material for historians, and thus, the bias that colors our work seeps into how the past is later reconstructed and remembered.
As a history major at UC Santa Barbara, I conducted research using magazine articles and advertisements from the 70s to understand how henna came into the U.S. beauty industry. My research revealed that amid the second-wave feminism movement, many women were rejecting cosmetic products in response to the idea of freeing women’s sexuality from the male gaze.
There was a cultural rejection of what was considered synthetic, artificial, and to please a man, and an embrace of what was considered natural, authentic, and for oneself. Cosmetic companies looking to cater to this demographic took advantage of the messaging from the movement and started promoting products they could advertise as for the “natural” woman. This is when henna began emerging as a popular hair dye in the U.S.
While conducting this research, I was struck by how fashion articles and cosmetic advertisements in magazines could help elucidate such a niche topic decades later. I wondered if one day, the articles I write might be examined by later historians to gain a better understanding of the times in which we live today.
Reflecting on the history we learned in high school, some chapters also highlighted the aforementioned issues in journalism, including misrepresentation and underrepresentation. Until college, none of my classes taught me about the Stonewall Riots or Black history outside the context of slavery and the Civil War.
In my own early-career experiences, I have found that some people in communities of color are distrustful of the media and resistant to being interviewed or included in stories. And I knew that harmful coverage from media outlets I was working for was why people were distrustful of me to begin with. Other times, it was because some communities felt journalists were only interested in their stories when there was crime or violence, and that their lives and stories were otherwise largely ignored. And finally, sometimes, people just don’t trust “the media.”
Perhaps I hadn’t considered the true magnitude of the problem. It wasn’t simply a history of biased coverage. It was a historical archive in which several communities of color had been relegated to stereotypes or were left unheard by the people who claimed to serve them. At one point, people lose faith.
That leaves those of us who write the first rough drafts of history, those of us who chronicle the present, to understand the past we inherit and the magnitude of its impact. Within my scope, I’ve attempted to approach reporting by understanding my audience and building relationships with key community voices and groups from the outset of every reporting position. I think about how to reach out to the everyday communities my outlet serves, the advocates and experts that govern my niche, whether that is immigration or education, and the lawmakers that govern and represent the communities my outlet serves.
The effort of establishing relationships early on allows people to get to know me as a reporter. It enables me to prove to them the type of journalist I am, rather than demanding their trust when a story I’m working on requires their perspective. It’s not the solution to a systemic problem, but it ensures I try my best on a personal scale, not just to expect people to be amenable to journalists, but rather to earn the trust they deserve.
Building relationships can be a long-term endeavor, and the trust it elicits can help tell stories that rectify the distorted narratives often perpetuated by newspapers for many communities. It’s a small step but an important one.
On a grander scale, news outlets can also revisit their previous coverage and consider follow-up stories — or the gaps in history left by underrepresentation or misrepresentation — to reframe the stories that define communities in newspaper archives.
Mark Danner’s “The Massacre at El Mozote” revisited a period of the Cold War in El Salvador where the Salvadoran military, backed by the U.S. army, killed hundreds in the name of anticommunism. Until Danner’s work surfaced in 1993, the U.S. government had largely succeeded in discrediting the very idea that the U.S. had partaken in the massacre.
Or perhaps take 'Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls' by Angela Sterritt, which combines memoir with investigative journalism to tell the stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls across Canada. Part of the story includes those who went missing along British Columbia's Highway of Tears since the 1970s, examining how insufficient police investigation created a cycle of desensitization and dehumanization of Indigenous women.
And as Sterrit’s work demonstrates, our life experiences can inform stories that bridge the gaps in historical coverage of certain communities. Such efforts serve as a poignant reminder that the ink that writes history is never permanently dry. However, it requires those of us who produce primary sources for future historians to consider the longer-term implications of how we create a permanent record of the people we report on.
Atmika Iyer is a graduate student in Northwestern Medill’s Politics, Policy, and Foreign Affairs reporting program. Atmika is also a journalism intern with the Fulcrum.
To read more of Atmika's work, click HERE.
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This past spring and summer, The Fulcrum published a 30-part, nonpartisan series examining Project 2025—a sweeping policy blueprint for a potential second Trump administration. Our analysis explored the proposed reforms and their far-reaching implications across government. Now, as the 2025 administration begins to take shape, it’s time to move from speculation to reality.
In this follow-up, we turn our focus to one of the most consequential—and quietly unfolding—chapters of that blueprint: Funding cuts from NPR and PBS.
Last week, Congress approved a proposal from the Trump administration to eliminate $1.1 billion in funding previously allocated to NPR, PBS, and their affiliated member stations.
Following the vote, NPR CEO Katherine Maher denounced the cuts as an “irreversible loss,” describing them as “an unwarranted dismantling of beloved local civic institutions” and “an act of Congress that disregards the public will.”
Two Republican senators, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, joined Democrats in opposing the measure. Nonetheless, the Senate version of the bill retains the cuts to public broadcasting.
Because the Senate revised the legislation, it must now return to the House for final approval. If the House adopts the Senate’s version, the bill will head to President Trump’s desk for signature. Under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which regulates congressional handling of presidential rescission requests, the deadline for passage is Friday, marking the end of a strict 45-day window.
Whether this legislation supersedes Trump’s Executive Order is a complex constitutional question. In practical terms, the bill reinforces rather than repeals the restrictions outlined in Trump’s May 1, 2025, directive, which instructed federal agencies and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to halt all direct and indirect support to NPR and PBS. The order also mandated revisions to existing contracts and funding rules to block future aid.
In short:
Absent judicial intervention or new congressional appropriations, both the executive order and the bill are poised to jointly eliminate public broadcasting funds beginning October 1, 2025. While laws passed by Congress can be challenged, such cases typically proceed only after enactment—and courts generally defer to Congress, viewing its legislation as an expression of the will of an elected body.
Now past the 100-day mark of his administration, President Trump’s policy rollout shows strong alignment with Project 2025—a 900-page blueprint for governance. Despite repeated campaign trail assertions that he had “nothing to do with” the document and had not read it, the resemblance between his actions and Project 2025’s recommendations is striking.
Earlier this year, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr notified NPR and PBS leadership that the agency had opened an investigation into content aired across their 1,500 member stations, as reported by The New York Times.
These stations are licensed by the FCC as noncommercial educational broadcasters. They operate on reserved frequencies, are exempt from licensing fees, and are legally prohibited from airing commercial advertisements. In a letter dated April 2023 to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Carr warned that certain broadcasts may breach federal standards:
“I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials. In particular, NPR and PBS member stations may be broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”
Carr further questioned the necessity of continued federal support for NPR and PBS, citing shifts in the media landscape. PBS CEO Paula Kerger responded by noting that the cuts would “devastate PBS member stations,” particularly in smaller and rural communities.
Carr is the author of the FCC chapter in Project 2025’s policy blueprint. Another section calls on Congress to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides grants to NPR and PBS.
According to Project 2025, "stripping public funding would, of course, mean that NPR, PBS, Pacifica Radio, and the other leftist broadcasters would be shorn of the presumption that they act in the public interest and receive the privileges that often accompany so acting."
Consequently, the document argues these outlets should no longer qualify as noncommercial educational broadcast stations.
The Fulcrum published over 30 columns in the three months leading up to last November’s election, offering a cross-partisan analysis of Project 2025. Our editorial stance was clear:
“We believed this would serve as a guide for citizens and elected representatives to safeguard the healthy democratic republic we all desire.”
The possibilities we spoke of then are now becoming reality. The negative impact of Project 2025 on institutions that have served Americans for generations is no longer speculative. It is unfolding before our eyes.
David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
"To prepare tomorrow’s doctors, medical school deans, elected officials, and health care regulators must invest in training that matches the pace and promise of this technology," writes Dr. Robert Pearl.
While colleges across the nation are adapting their curricula to harness the power of generative AI, U.S. medical schools remain dangerously behind.
Most students entering medicine today will graduate without ever being trained to use GenAI tools effectively. That must change. To prepare tomorrow’s doctors – and protect tomorrow’s patients – medical school deans, elected officials, and health care regulators must invest in training that matches the pace and promise of this technology.
Universities embrace AI as medical schools fall behind
Across the country, colleges and universities are reimagining how they educate students in the age of generative AI.
These aren’t niche experiments. They’re part of a sweeping, systems-level transformation aimed at preparing graduates for a rapidly evolving workforce.
Most medical schools, however, have not kept pace. Instead of training students to apply modern tools toward clinical care, they continue to emphasize memorization — testing students on biochemical pathways and obscure facts rarely used in practice.
Early fears about plagiarism and declining academic rigor led many university departments to proceed cautiously after ChatGPT’s release in 2022. But since then, an increasing number of these educational institutions have shifted from policing AI to requiring faculty to incorporate GenAI into their coursework. And the American Federation of Teachers announced earlier this month that it would start an AI training hub for educators with $23 million from tech giants Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Medical education remains an outlier. A recent Educause study found that just 14% of medical schools have developed a formal GenAI curriculum, compared to 60% of undergraduate programs. Most medical school leaders and doctors still regard large language models as administrative aids rather than essential clinical tools.
This view is short-sighted. Within a few years, physicians will rely on generative AI to synthesize vast amounts of medical research, identify diagnostic patterns, and recommend treatment options tailored to the latest evidence. Patients will arrive at appointments already equipped with GenAI-assisted insights.
Used responsibly, generative AI can help prevent the 400,000 deaths each year from diagnostic errors, 250,000 deaths from preventable medical mistakes, and 500,000 deaths from poorly controlled chronic diseases. Elected officials and regulators need to support this life-saving approach.
How medical schools can catch up
In the past, medical students were evaluated on their ability to recall information. In the future, they will be judged by their ability to help AI-empowered patients manage chronic illnesses, prevent life-threatening disease complications, and maximize their health.
With generative AI capabilities doubling every year, matriculating medical students will be entering clinical practice equipped with tools over 30 times more powerful than today’s models. Yet few doctors will have received structured training on how to use them effectively.
Modernizing medical education starts with faculty training. Students entering medical school in 2025 will arrive already comfortable using generative AI tools like ChatGPT. Most instructors, however, will need to build that fluency.
To close this gap, academic leaders should provide faculty training programs before the start of the next academic year. These sessions would introduce educators to prompt engineering, output evaluation, and reliability assessment. These are foundational skills for teaching and applying GenAI in clinical scenarios.
Once faculty are prepared, schools would begin building case-based curricula that reflect modern clinical realities.
Sample Exercise: Managing chronic disease with GenAI support
In this scenario, students imagine seeing a 45-year-old man during a routine checkup. The patient has no prior medical problems, but on a physical exam, his blood pressure reads 140/100.
First, students walk through the traditional diagnostic process:
Next, they enter the same case into a generative AI tool and compare its output to their own. Where do they align? Where do they differ (and, importantly, why)?
Finally, students design a care plan that incorporates GenAI’s growing capabilities, such as:
This type of training – integrated alongside traditional curriculum – prepares future clinicians to master not just the technology but also understand how it can be used to transform medical care.
A call to government: Empower the next generation of physicians
Medical schools can’t do this alone. Because most physician training is funded through federal grants and Medicare-supported residency programs, meaningful reform will require coordinated leadership from academic institutions, government agencies, and lawmakers.
Preparing future doctors to use GenAI safely and effectively should be treated as a national imperative. Medicare will need to fund new educational initiatives, and agencies like the FDA must streamline the approval process for GenAI-assisted clinical applications.
This month, the Trump administration encouraged U.S. companies and nonprofits to develop AI training programs for schools, educators, and students. Leading tech companies — including Nvidia, Amazon, and Microsoft — quickly signed on.
If medical school deans demonstrate similar openness to innovation, we can expect policymakers and industry leaders to invest in medical education, too.
But if medical educators and government leaders hesitate, for-profit companies and private equity firms will fill the void. And they will use GenAI not to improve patient care but primarily to increase margins and drive revenue.
As deans prepare to welcome the class of 2029 (and as lawmakers face the growing costs of American health care), they must ask themselves:
Are we preparing students to practice yesterday’s medicine or to lead tomorrow’s?
Dr. Robert Pearl, the author of “ ChatGPT, MD,” teaches at both the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group.
