In November and December 2024, a series of popular videos claimed to show Barron Trump, the youngest son of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, singing a number of songs. Most of the songs were about his support for his father, and with heavy Christian faith-based references.
The videos spread through a YouTube channel called MAGASongs2024. The earliest video on that channel was uploaded in September 2024. One video had more than 1 million views, and featured Barron Trump singing a song with the lyrics:
There's a cross on my heart, a light in my soul,
Jesus guides me, makes me whole.
Walking these halls where history's made,
With faith and love, I'm never afraid.The White House shines, it's more than stone,
It feels like a calling, a place to call home.
And through it all, my mom's my guide,
With her grace and strength, I walk with pride.I love Jesus, he's my King,
In the White House, his praises I sing.
With my mother by my side, so strong and true,
Faith, family, and love guide what I do.
The most recent video, as of this writing, was published on Dec. 7, 2024, and showed Barron Trump singing a song about his father's victory in the 2024 presidential election.
The above videos, as well as the others posted on the same account, are all AI-generated and do not authentically show Barron Trump singing.
We looked closely at each video and found they all showed his head moving in a similar, stilted fashion, his body remaining unnaturally still and lyrics that often did not match the movement of his mouth.
The creator of the AI videos took real photographs of Barron Trump and manipulated them to seem as though he were singing. For example, a video titled "Standing by Their Side" is taken from a picture of him standing next to his mother, Melania Trump, in 2020. The video zoomed in on Barron Trump's face and used AI technology to make his head move and his mouth form words.
This YouTube account is not the only place where similar fake videos of Barron Trump have circulated. One YouTube playlist named for the young Trump features videos of him purportedly singing. A video from a user called "Trump Music" uses a similar technique to the previous clips, where a poor-quality picture of Barron Trump is manipulated so that his mouth moves as the music plays.
Other videos simply show photographs of Barron Trump while a song plays over them. None of these videos provides proof that he is the person singing.
However, some commenters seem to believe the videos are authentic. One user wrote, "God bless Barron Trump and his parents and protect them from every evil in the world."
Many accounts commenting under the videos were likely bots, as seen in the screenshot below. The accounts had usernames with a jumble of letters and words, a common sign that they are fake.
(Screenshot via YouTube/MAGASongs2024)
We also found footage of the real Barron Trump speaking, purportedly on election night in November 2024., and his voice sounds completely different from the voice in the videos. However, the vocals in the videos are strongly autotuned and edited, making it difficult to authenticate who the real singer could be — if it's not an AI-generated voice.
Snopes has a series of articles on how to identify AI-generated material online and has frequently covered such deepfakes before, including this fake video of the president-elect saying "Make America Anti-Semitic Again" and numerous doctored videos and images of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.