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Durbin then made a dramatic claim about what the image supposedly showed.
“This photo shows the last seconds before the ICE agent killed Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis,” he said, pointing to an image of Pretti kneeling on the ground, surrounded by three ICE agents—one allegedly aiming a weapon.
“In [Pretti’s] right hand is his camera, the left hand holding the ground,” Durbin continued. “No gun obvious, no effort to resist obvious.”
For more than seven minutes, Durbin spoke solemnly about the tragedy with the image displayed behind him. What he never noticed—or chose not to acknowledge—was a glaring detail that undermined his entire speech: one of the ICE agents in the photo didn’t have a head.
The image was an obvious AI fabrication.
Durbin wasn’t alone in circulating manipulated images tied to the Pretti shooting. Similar visuals had already surfaced across left-leaning media platforms. MSNBC personality Nicolle Wallace even referenced altered imagery on her program, reinforcing a narrative before all the facts were known.
But Durbin’s use of the fake image carried far greater weight. As the second-most powerful Democrat in the Senate, his words—and visuals—carry authority. Instead, the stunt backfired spectacularly.
The issue goes far beyond embarrassment or gallows humor. The shooting of Alex Pretti remains under investigation, and unlike other high-profile cases, it is not a clear-cut example of unjustified force. Yet Democrats quickly seized on the incident to argue that immigration enforcement itself is fundamentally corrupt.
Using an AI-generated deepfake to dramatize Pretti’s final moments doesn’t just mislead—it distorts reality. It also strongly suggests Durbin hadn’t bothered to review the widely available video footage of the incident. That footage is accessible to any average citizen with a social media account, let alone a senior U.S. senator. The more troubling possibility is that he saw the real footage and believed he could get away with presenting a false image anyway.
This brings us to the political motive behind the display.
Durbin’s speech coincided with renewed Democratic efforts to slash funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The Pretti shooting provided a convenient emotional wedge—one that could be used to justify voting against government funding agreements. If the incident appeared unquestionably immoral, Democrats could claim the moral high ground. But it wasn’t. And Durbin knew—or should have known—that.
The irony deepens when considering Durbin’s recent push to fast-track legislation targeting AI deepfakes.
From Axios, Jan. 13:
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday will call for unanimous consent to pass the bipartisan DEFIANCE Act, a bill to protect people from image-based sexual abuse online, Axios has learned.
Chatbots are coming under fire for producing child sexual abuse material and non-consensual intimate imagery of adults, and people are eager for legal recourse.
Durbin’s move comes in the wake of public outcry over Elon Musk’s X, which hasn’t been able to keep up with the images its Grok chatbot has been producing. [Emphasis ours.]
Durbin has positioned himself as a leading voice warning Americans about the dangers of AI imagery. He has spoken confidently about regulation, despite demonstrating virtually no ability to identify a fake image himself.
“The AI boom is fully underway. Leaving it unregulated puts us all at risk,” he said.
Apparently, the risk was greater than even Durbin imagined—especially to his own credibility. Less than a month after making that statement, the senator stood on the Senate floor holding up an AI deepfake to advance a political narrative.
If this is the caliber of leadership Democrats are offering on AI policy, maybe it’s time someone reconnects Uncle Dick from Springfield to AOL and gently explains that not everything on the internet is real.
