It started three weeks ago with a surprise. Donald Trump, making an announcement that even members of his own team didn’t expect, said that he wants the United States to take a “long-term ownership position” over Gaza. As the president described it, Americans would both “take over” and “own” the area, and when asked about the possibility of deploying U.S. military forces to the Gaza Strip, the Republican added, “We’ll do what is necessary.”
In the days that followed, Trump added new details, insisting that Gaza “would be turned over to the United States” — presumably at no cost — at which point he would “own“ the area. The president similarly claimed, in reference to Gaza, “We’re going to take it, we’re going to hold it.”
Palestinians, under the Republican’s vision, would be relocated to other countries, and would not be welcome in his new Gaza. It led United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to describe the White House’s proposal as “tantamount to ethnic cleansing.”
For good measure, the American president added that “nobody is going to question” U.S. ownership of Gaza because … well, he never quite got around to explaining why. Just as importantly, as experts in international law continue to explain that his plan is illegal, Trump was asked how the United States could legally claim Palestinian territory as its own. The president cited “U.S. authority.”
He’s had plenty of opportunities to walk this back in the face of international outrage. Trump is instead finding new — and jaw-dropping — ways to lean into his ambitions. Axios noted:
President Trump shared what appeared to be an AI-generated video late Tuesday night depicting [a] vision of “the Riviera of the Middle East” if his plan to “take over the Gaza strip” comes to fruition. … The video recasts the enclave that’s been devastated by the Israel-Hamas war as an oasis of Trump’s fantasy, complete with bellydancers, a golden statue of himself and Elon Musk dancing under a shower of money.
That might sound like an exaggeration. It is not.
This was just posted on President Trump’s Truth Social account.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yasharali.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T05:02:27.987Z
The 33-second video — which, again, appears to have been generated entirely by AI, though the original source and creator are unclear — begins by showing images of devastation in Gaza.
Roughly five seconds in, however, viewers are presented with computer-generated images of a fantastical Gaza, featuring skyscrapers, sports cars, yachts, and beach-front resorts. The same fake video featured Trump’s top campaign donor enjoying a meal, a child carrying a gold balloon of Trump’s head, Trump at a nightclub, Musk dancing under money falling from the sky, children celebrating under money that’s also falling from the sky, a high-rise featuring the “Trump Gaza” label in gold letters, and an apparent giftshop featuring golden Trump figurines. In case this feast for the eyes was too subtle, at the 25-second mark, the same video suggests Trump’s Gaza would also feature a giant golden statue of Trump himself in the middle of an apparent thoroughfare. Faye Nemer, CEO and Founder of the MENA American Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn, Michigan, told NPR the video is “offensive and counterproductive to peace talks.” Nemer, who says she voted for Trump last fall, went on to call on the president to remove the video and issue a “reconciliatory statement.” Given everything we know about that Republican, that seems extraordinarily unlikely.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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