Donald Trump is no stranger to outlandish conspiracies or strange social media posts. But, by any measure, his post on Saturday night was particularly bizarre. The president posted (and later removed) a clip on Truth Social of a fake Fox News segment with Lara Trump detailing the White House’s announcement of the world’s first MedBed hospital and a national MedBed card system (two things that very much do not exist). Fox News told The Verge that the MedBed segment, “never aired on Fox News Channel or any other Fox News Media platforms.”
There was no additional context, no text to explain things. Confusing matters more, the video appears to be completely AI generated, including Trump himself discussing the program in the Oval Office. (Perhaps one of the biggest giveaways being the president’s ability to stay on script.)
MedBeds, for those that tend to avoid the more QANON-y corners of the internet, are an imaginary medical device that can do everything from treat asthma, to regrow missing limbs, to cure cancer. The fantasy of an all-in-one device that can cure all your ills has obvious appeal, but belief that these are real products being kept from the American public by Big Pharma has grown among conspiracy theorists in recent years.
Many of the presidents followers acknowledged that the video was AI-generated, but still seemed to believe that Trump was confirming the existence of MedBeds. Whatever the purpose of the post was, we may never know. The president frequently sends things out into the ether and never explains himself. And now that the video has been removed the White House will likely try to pretend the whole incident away.
Updated September 28th: Added comment from Fox News.