Sen. Amy Klobuchar said she was surprised when she heard her voice in a clip on X criticizing Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad campaign, which aims to sell the company’s jeans with the likeness of the actress’ “great genes.”
The tone and pitch sounded like her, but they weren’t her words, Klobuchar wrote in an Aug. 20 New York Times opinion piece. That’s when the Minnesota Democratic senator realized it was a deepfake, a digitally altered video or audio recording that uses a person’s voice or image, created by artificial intelligence.
“A realistic deepfake — an A.I.-generated video that shows someone doing or saying something they never did — can circle the globe and land in the phones of millions while the truth is still stuck on a landline,” Klobuchar wrote in the piece, titled “What I Didn’t Say About Sydney Sweeney.” She called the so-called video of her “a vulgar and absurd critique.”
Klobuchar has pushed for AI regulation on the national level – an effort that’s not just supported by Democrats. In 2024, she and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced a Senate bill to ban actual and artificial intelligence- generated posts of intimate imagery and deepfakes. The bill also required online platforms to “promptly remove such depictions upon receiving notice.”
President Donald Trump in May signed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, a law meant to outlaw deepfakes and revenge pornography. Now, companies must have a process for people to report deepfakes and nonconsensual intimate images, including revenge pornography, within 48 hours of being notified.
Still, the push has its critics. That includes Republican Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, and Eric Burlison, R-Missouri, as well as advocates concerned about how the move could limit national free speech protections.
In her opinion piece, Klobuchar accused X of not following the stipulations of the new law. She said the platform didn’t take down the deepfake video of her – or label it as false quickly enough.
Now, Klobuchar wrote that she’s looking for even more policy change to make social media companies remove deepfakes, with some exceptions for free speech protections. Her proposed bill is cosponsored by Sens. Chris Coons, D-Delaware; Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee.
“That bill was only the first step,” she wrote in her op-ed.
First lady Melania Trump signs the TAKE IT DOWN Act alongside U.S. President Donald Trump, lawmakers and victims of AI deepfakes and revenge porn, during a signing ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. The first lady made the Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks (TAKE IT DOWN) Act a priority, traveling to Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers and show her support for the legislation, which addresses non-consensual intimate imagery, or “revenge porn,” and artificial intelligence deepfakes posted online and to social media.
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Klobuchar accuses X of not taking down video
Klobuchar credited tech giants TikTok and Meta for taking the proper precautions to protect her and warn the public that it wasn’t actually her speaking in the video. But she slammed X for not following the new law.
“X refused to take it down or label it, even though its policy says users are prohibited from sharing ‘inauthentic content on X that may deceive people,’ including ‘manipulated or out-of-context media that may result in widespread confusion on public issues,'” she wrote in the opinion piece.
“They must at least include labeling requirements for content that is substantially generated by A.I,” she added.
X did not immediately respond to an inquiry from USA TODAY for a response on Klobucher’s comments.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. Xxx Jc206795 Jpg A Oth Usa Dc
What are the repercussions of deepfakes?
Reputations are at risk when deepfakes are posted and allowed to linger online, Klobuchar warned in the Times.
Deepfakes of other prominent figures, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and even pop star Taylor Swift, have also been posted online and attracted attention to the issue.
Deepfakes have also been used by young people as a bullying tactic. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has also cited an increasing threat of deepfake identities.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, holds a press conference alongside Elliston Berry and Francesca Mani (left to right), who are both victims of deepfake pornography. The bipartisan bill, the TAKE IT DOWN Act, aims to criminalize the publication of fake sexually explicit images and require websites to remove them.
In her op-ed, Klobuchar cited a January 2022 study to show that “people who see this type of content develop lasting negative views of the person in the video, even when they know it is fake.”
“There is no way to quantify the chaos that could take place without legal checks,” Klobuchar wrote later in the piece. “Imagine a deepfake of a bank C.E.O. that triggers a bank run, a deepfake of an influencer telling children to use drugs or a deepfake of a U.S. president starting a war that triggers attacks on our troops. The possibilities are endless.”
Contact Kayla Jimenez at kjimenez@usatoday.com. Follow her on X at @kaylajjimenez.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amy Klobuchar says Sydney Sweeney video was an AI deepfake, not real