Blakeman and Trump’s anti-Hochul AI images are no slam dunk - Gothamist

In June 2026, President Donald Trump, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and New York gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman released a series of AI-generated images and videos depicting themselves performing basketball dunks against New York Governor Kathy Hochul. These political posts, timed during the NBA Finals, utilized hyper-masculine imagery to challenge the governor, though the content contained several technical errors characteristic of current artificial intelligence generation.

What happened

The AI-generated content featured several notable anomalies, such as anatomically incorrect hands on the Governor in a Trump-posted image and a game clock that ticked upward rather than downward in a video posted by Blakeman. The video featuring Blakeman, created by software engineer and volunteer Walter Shub, also included garbled audio where the crowd’s chant of the candidate's name was unintelligible. While a 2024 state law requires political campaigns to disclose "materially deceptive media," the Blakeman campaign defended the posts as satire, which is exempt from disclosure requirements. Despite the exemption, the video did include a small "AI" label in the corner. The content also utilized Knicks-themed jerseys, though the team’s owner, Madison Square Garden Sports, stated it found no trademark violations. Governor Hochul addressed the memes publicly, using the imagery to criticize the Republican figures' stances on transgender athletes competing in women's sports.