Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter recently called out a viral deepfake starring her late father, in which the slain civil rights leader was digitally altered to endorse Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Bernice King denounced the manipulated footage Monday on X, formerly Twitter, calling for the “vile” post to be deleted. The video was first shared in February by @Ramble_Rants, a member of the “Dilley Meme Team,” a pro-MAGA movement on social media.
“We’ve been told again and again that we cannot vote for the man that did more for the Black community than any other president,” says a deepfaked MLK Jr. in the video, which was shared again Sunday by another pro-Trump account. called @MAGAResource.
“If a Black man dares speak out in support of Donald Trump, a Democrat is always there to call that man an Uncle Tom, a house Negro, or even worse,” it continues. “We’ve been used by the Democrats. For decades, we’ve supported the party of slavery and Jim Crow.”
The original post accrued more than 1,300 likes and nearly 800 reposts, with the video itself showing former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi kneeling in honor of George Floyd, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) at the U.S.-Mexico border and Hunter Biden in court.
Bernice King, whose father stood for national unity and nonviolent protest to improve the lives of all low-income, Black or brown Americans, reacted Monday after @MAGAResource shared it. She slammed it as “irresponsible” and demanded the removal of the video.
“Delete this, @MAGAResource,” Bernice wrote on X while resharing the post, which has since been removed from the account. “It’s vile, fake, irresponsible, and not at all reflective of what my father would say. And you gave no thought to our family.”
Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images
The “Dilley Meme Team” reportedly takes its name from Brenden Dilley, a failed congressional candidate-turned-podcaster who has curated a horde of anonymous meme-makers to promote Trump — and refers to itself as “Trump’s Online War Machine.”
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The deepfake-wielding team previously edited a montage of President Joe Biden falling off his bicycle, mispronouncing names and flubbing various campaign lines, which The New York Times reported in 2023 was played at one of Trump’s rallies in Ohio the previous year.
Trump reportedly sent members personalized thank-you notes in 2023, when senior adviser Jason Miller lauded the team for “single-handedly changing the landscape of politics and social media.” Most telling of all, however, were Dilley’s own words in 2019.
“It doesn’t have to be true,” he told listeners ahead of the 2020 presidential election. “It just has to go viral.”