Trump, AI & Charlie Kirk

Lisa Ernst · 17.09.2025 · Technology · 5 min

The discussion around Trump's AI agenda, the Truth Social chatbot experiment, and AI videos following Charlie Kirk's death has intensified in recent days. Trump's new AI policy marks different priorities than the previous administration; Truth Social is testing its own AI search chatbot, and AI-generated clips circulated on social media after Kirk's murder. This text examines the verifiable facts, data, and positions to provide a quick understanding of the secured, contested and relevant points.

Quelle: Custom depiction

Trump's AI Policy

Since January 2025, the U.S. government under President Donald Trump has pursued a new AI approach. With the Executive Order of January 23, 2025, earlier guardrails of the previous administration were lifted and a shift toward an “American AI leadership” was initiated. On July 10, 2025, the publication of “America’s AI Action Plan” followed, outlining the political directions. On July 23, 2025, Trump signed three central AI edicts, including “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government.” This order obliges providers to avoid or disclose ideological bias in their chatbots for government contracts. A White House fact sheet and AP News reports explain the details.

Truth Social AI Chatbot

Parallelly, Trump's Truth Social platform is experimenting with its own AI search chatbot ("Truth Search AI") based on Perplexity. Early tests showed the bot sometimes produced answers that contradicted Trump’s statements — for example about the 2020 election or tariffs, as reported by the Washington Post on August 10, 2025. Wired reports on August 8, 2025 also suggested that Truth Social heavily filters the bot's sources toward conservative media. Perplexity describes this as legitimate “domain filtering” in its documentation.

Quelle: fastcompany.com

A viral Tweet showing an alleged AI-generated video of Donald Trump sparked wide-ranging discussions about the authenticity of digital media.

Charlie Kirk's Death and AI

Charlie Kirk was the founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a conservative youth organization. He helped mobilize young conservative voters for years. On September 10, 2025 Kirk was shot and killed at an event at Utah Valley University; his death and the investigations dominated the headlines since then, as Reuters reported. From September 14, 2025 AI-generated post-mortem clips circulated, in which a synthetic Kirk voice offers comfort and rallying cries. The Daily Beast documented examples and the viral effect, especially on TikTok and X.

Quelle: en.newsner.com

The debate over AI-generated content peaked when a video involving Donald Trump related to Charlie Kirk drew attention.

Debates and Criticisms

Supporters of the new AI policy argue that the state should purchase neutral, not ideologically “driven” AI; developers should disclose guidelines. This is the core of the Executive Order “Preventing Woke AI”. Fortune and AP emphasize that industry generally welcomes this “disclosure instead of prohibition” model but sees risks when policy and culture wars influence model governance.

Critics warn that “ideological neutrality” is hard to measure, and a political framing could lead to self-censorship or the illusion of objectivity. AP notes that large language models (LLMs) carry inherent biases from training data, and “neutrality” is not a simple switch. A basic definition of what LLMs are and why they tend toward bias is provided by Wikipedia.

In the Truth Search AI chatbot, the debate centers on source control: The Washington Post shows inconsistencies with Trump’s theses; Wired notes strong filtering toward conservative domains; Perplexity documents this domain filtering openly in its API docs.

The AI clips “from beyond the grave” around Charlie Kirk prompt an ethical discussion: May a synthetic voice of a real, recently deceased person be used en masse for mobilization? The phenomenon is documented, and views diverge, as The Daily Beast showed. In general these videos are understood as “deepfakes” — KI-generated media content that closely imitates real people, as Wikipedia explains.

Impact and Outlook

The combination of “Trump AI Charlie Kirk” trending from multiple angles: first, the July edicts visibly shift the emphasis of U.S. AI policy, making them immediately relevant for agencies, procurement, and providers. Second, a presidentially shaped ecosystem tests how far answers can be curated via “Truth Search AI” without losing credibility — a stress test for transparency, source breadth, and tolerance for error, as Wired and Washington Post reported. Third, the shock over Kirk’s death highlights how quickly AI tools can feed into collective grief, mobilization, and disinformation, as TIME and The Daily Beast documented.

For platforms and media, this implies: labeling, context, and moderation become more important. YouTube, for example, introduced new AI transparency features in 2025 to better mark generated content. For the audience: verify sources, recognize patterns, and beware when synthetic media triggers emotions especially strongly.

For policy and administration, the path forward lies in three points: First, operationalize procurement criteria clearly so that “neutrality” does not become an empty slogan, as the Executive Order shows. Second, design audits and disclosures to keep innovation from being stifled while making manipulation and hidden filters visible, as Fortune analyzed wrote. Third, normalize society’s handling of posthumous AI recreations: what is respectful, what is deception? The current Kirk wave shows the urgency, as The Daily Beast illustrated.

The triad of politics, product, and audience remains: policy sets incentives and boundaries, products operationalize them in code and interfaces, and the audience decides with its behavior which content gains reach. The coming weeks will show whether government edicts translate into clear procurement rules, whether “Truth Search AI” expands its source breadth or continues to curate, and whether platforms label posthumous AI clips more strictly. For the audience: calmly evaluate, actively seek primary sources, and treat contradictions as an opportunity to learn.

For deeper engagement with the official AI agenda, see the White House Fact Sheet and the online Actions Plan; additionally, the business press context is worth noting, as Fortune reported. For context on Kirk's role and the consequences of his death, the dossiers from PBS, Reuters, and TIME are helpful.