Team USA hockey star Brady Tkachuk has fumed over an AI-doctored video released by the White House that suggests he made a vile comment about Canadians.
Tkachuk helped America claim a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Italy, with a dramatic overtime victory over rivals Canada getting them over the line on Sunday.
After becoming Olympic champions, the Ottawa Senators captain joined his national teammates at Donald Trump‘s State of the Union speech and the White House this week to celebrate their achievement.
Yet before he made the trip to Washington, Tkachuk was the subject of a TikTok video shared by the White House that has been altered by AI.
The clip, which has over 11 million views on TikTok, was doctored to make it seem like he said about Canadians after Sunday’s win: ‘They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple syrup eating f***s a lesson.’
‘Well, it’s clearly fake, because it’s not my voice, not my lips moving,’ Tkachuk said Thursday. ‘I’m not in control of any of those accounts. I know that those words would never come out of my mouth. So, I can’t do anything about it.’
USA hockey star Brady Tkachuk has fumed over an AI-edited video posted by the White House
Warning – strong language below
When asked if he enjoyed the video, he added: ‘It’s not my voice. It’s not what I was saying.
‘I would never say that. That’s not who I am, so I guess I don’t like that video because that would never come out of my mouth and never had that thought.’
Trump also sparked controversy after footage of his phone call with the victorious men’s team surfaced on social media.
While congratulating them on capturing gold, the president joked that he was also ‘going to have to bring the women’s team’ to Washington after they too got past Canada in the final.
He then added that he ‘probably would be impeached’ if he didn’t extend the invitation to America’s female hockey champions.
The women’s team subsequently turned down Trump’s invitation due to ‘scheduled academic and professional commitments following the Games.’
And Tkachuk said he understood why they could have felt insulted by his locker-room joke, which some have labeled misogynistic.
Donald Trump has sparked outrage in the wake of both the men’s and women’s team’s wins
Members of the men’s Olympic hockey team still attended his address to Congress on Tuesday
‘I mean, I get it,’ he said before detailing the positive relationship between the men’s and women’s teams. ‘We support them, they support us. You can’t control what other people say. It was fun being around them, seeing how they play and the excellence around them.
‘If I see one of them, we’ll talk about the excitement of what we can control, which is to be gold medalists.’
Tkachuk was also accused by some of shouting ‘Close the northern border!’ during the congratulatory call with Trump, but he stressed: ‘It’s crazy when things go on social media, how fast they go. I would never say anything like that.’
During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Trump announced that the USA women’s team will still be visiting the White House at a later date despite rejecting his first invitation.
‘They beat a fantastic Canadian team in overtime, as everybody saw. As did the American women who will soon be coming to the White House,’ he told a filled chamber of Congress.