OAN’s Matt Gaetz apologizes for using AI-generated fakes of women soldiers in female military recruitment segment
One America News host Matt Gaetz apologized on Thursday night for his show using AI-generated fake images of women soldiers in uniform during a segment meant to highlight the increased number of female military recruits.
Gaetz, the former GOP congressman who joined the MAGA network after his short-lived nomination for attorney general fell through amid renewed scrutiny over sexual misconduct allegations, brought on Defense Department spokesperson Kingsley Wilson – who is no stranger to controversy herself – to boast about a supposed year-over-year boost in military recruitment during a Wednesday night interview.
As Wilson gushed about the “soaring” figures compared to the previous administration, a number of images of women in combat fatigues aired on the screen beside her. In every single instance, the photos were generated by artificial intelligence.
Specifically, based on the watermarks visible in the bottom corners of the images, they were created by Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk and available on his social media platform X. (Musk, meanwhile, appears to have lost out on a massive federal contract for Grok after the chatbot went on a wild antisemtic rant and referred to itself as “MechaHitler.”)
“These numbers are fantastic,” Wilson exclaimed excitedly, as the blatantly fake photos scrolled on the screen. “Under the previous administration, we had about 16,000 female recruits last year; now we’ve got upwards of 24,000… It is a testament to Secretary Hegseth and President Trump’s leadership.”
A Pentagon spokesperson told CNN later that the department had nothing to do with the images and did not provide them to the right-wing channel. The network, meanwhile, copped to using Grok to create the background footage.
“The images violated company policies, which have been re-enforced with all staff,” an OAN spokesperson said. “An on-air correction has been put in place. Management has taken additional actions to ensure the issue is appropriately addressed.”
Indeed, at the end of Thursday night’s broadcast of his show, Gaetz issued an on-air apology for using the AI fakes during the interview with Wilson – though he also tried to justify it.
“We’re generally quite cautious about showing the faces of actual military members on air because sometimes America’s enemies use facial recognition software in very devious ways,” he stated.
“But, we made a mistake,” Gaetz continued. “We used AI-generated images of female service members as part of our B-roll package, and we shouldn’t have. The DOD didn’t give us these images; Grok did. And we’ll use better judgment going forward.”
Gaetz, meanwhile, isn’t the only media figure to come under fire over his recent reliance on artificial intelligence.
Former CNN anchor turned independent journalist Jim Acosta faced intense backlash for his interview with an AI version of a student killed during the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, though Acosta responded to the criticism by saying he was “honored” to help the victim’s family remember their son.
NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo was also viciously mocked last week after he fell for a deepfake video of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) supposedly showing the progressive lawmaker delivering a House floor rant about the Sydney Sweeney “good jeans” ad. Though he would later admit he credulously accepted the fake video as real, Cuomo would double down on his criticism of Ocasio-Cortez both online and during his primetime show.
One America News appeared to be on the brink of extinction in recent years after all of its cable and satellite providers dropped it amid the network’s headlong embrace of conspiracy theories and election denialism. The channel’s parroting of Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” led to several defamation lawsuits from voting software firms and election workers, some of which the network has already settled.
