The Deepfake Attack on JD Vance

You may have seen this already if you spent any time on X or TikTok this week because it was getting a lot of attention. Numerous people were sharing a clip of VP Vance apparently revealing his unvarnished thoughts about Elon Musk.

Leaked audio of JD Vance in a jealous rant…

Let’s just say JD Vance is no fan of Elon Musk and thinks he makes him look bad. But the truth is—Trump and Vance don’t need Elon to make them look bad. pic.twitter.com/Y1jyZPGUOw

— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) March 24, 2025

The clip originated on TikTok several days before Webb shared it on X Sunday. By Monday others were sharing it on X as well. Bishop Swan’s tweet apparently has nearly 9 million views.

“He’s not even an American. He is from South Africa. And he’s cosplaying as this great American leader.”

– Vice President @JDVance on @elonmusk

The infighting is in full swing.

Happy Monday! pic.twitter.com/Jf0u9z1Uvu

— Bishop Talbert Swan (@TalbertSwan) March 24, 2025

As you can see, people figured out pretty quickly that this was AI generated audio. Newsweek https://www.newsweek.com/jd-vance-elon-musk-leaked-audio-ai-misinformation-2049488:

The video appears to originate from the account Joseiitalia on TikTok, where it received 1.5 million views as of reporting. It was also shared to X where it received over 500,000 views and has also been posted on multiple Reddit threads.

The Joseiitalia TikTok account frequently shares videos which have a critical tone of President Donald Trump, including one which was viewed over 2 million times where people are filmed chanting, “Impeach Trump,” and the video was captioned with that same phrase.

In any case, numerous outlets have concluded it’s a fake. Here’s FactCheck.org.

We asked GetReal Labs, a company that analyzes manufactured content, whether it could determine the authenticity of the recording. Emmanuelle Saliba, chief investigative officer at GetReal, told us in a March 24 email, “Our team conducted a detailed forensic analysis of the audio. We tracked down the highest-quality version available, isolated the voice and removed background noise. Based on our review,  we believe the audio is likely inauthentic. 

“The cadence and intonation are not consistent with Vice President Vance’s typical speech patterns. In addition, although we have not performed a full biometric analysis, the identity of the voice in the audio does not sound like Vance,” Saliba said. “The unusually low audio quality — a common trick to conceal evidence of manipulation/synthesis — is also highly suspicious.”

This BBC report says the original clip has since been deleted.

Lead Stories also ran the audio through a bunch of AI detection tools (8 in total) all of which concluded it was fake, most concluding there was a >99% chance it was AI generated.

Vance himself said it was fake and attacked Bishop Swan for posting it.

It’s a fake AI-generated clip. I’m not surprised this guy doesn’t have the intelligence to recognize this fact, but I wonder if he has the integrity to delete it now that he knows it’s false.

If not, it could be defamation. I guess we’ll find out! https://t.co/raS524I4kq

— JD Vance (@JDVance) March 24, 2025

Swan refused to take it down and essentially called Vance a racist.

Why am I not surprised about you questioning a Black man’s intelligence?

— Bishop Talbert Swan (@TalbertSwan) March 24, 2025

Caucacity is @JDVance threatening to sue me for defamation for sharing audio that was not created by me, but has been shared by every major news outlet, podcaster, and website in the nation, questioning my intelligence and integrity, when he has yet to apologized to the Haitian… pic.twitter.com/bVHwkgtUgZ

— Bishop Talbert Swan (@TalbertSwan) March 25, 2025

He also retweeted this claim that the audio was real.

Everyone can hear it’s you—no AI needed. The cadence, the tone, the lack of self-awareness? Unmistakable.

Calling it “AI-generated” doesn’t make it go away—it just makes you look guilty and ridiculous.

— Gandalv (@Microinteracti1) March 24, 2025

Swan did say on Piers Morgan’s show that if the clip was shown to be bogus he would take it down, but at this point it has been proven to be bogus and he hasn’t taken it down.

The bigger picture here is that there is a bigger market for Trump administration infighting (and trashing Elon Musk) than there is actual infighting. That’s why some people are happy to jump on anything even if it has no source and seems fake. There are a lot of clicks to be had in just telling progressives what they want to hear at this moment. 

The urge to take down Musk has been slightly deflected this week by the newfound urge to take down Secretary Pete Hegseth and Natioonal Security Advisor Michael Waltz over the Signal Chat with Jeffrey Goldberg. We’re only 9 weeks into this administration and the left is already trying to Jussie Smollet an insider scandal into existence. It’s going to be a very long four years.