A political action committee is running an AI-generated attack ad depicting Rep. Thomas Massie in a fabricated romantic "throuple" with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says the ad breaks a federal law that President Trump signed less than a year ago. Even though Massie is far from an ally of Trump's, this type of attack is crossing a line and does far more harm than good from a political perspective.
The ad, paid for by a PAC called MAGA Kentucky, landed this week as Kentucky's GOP primary approaches on May 19. It takes aim at Massie, the libertarian-leaning Republican who has represented Kentucky's 4th Congressional District for over a decade, over his opposition to Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill." The PAC was launched specifically to push Massie out of office and replace him with Ed Gallrein, a Trump-backed challenger.
But the ad's content goes well beyond ordinary campaign hardball. It uses AI-generated imagery and language, insinuating that Massie has a romantic relationship with two of the most prominent progressive members of Congress. As Mediaite reported, the ad includes a narrator who states: "In Washington, he's cheating with the Squad on the America First movement." The ad carries a disclaimer acknowledging it was created using artificial intelligence.
Massie took the unusual step of sharing the ad himself online, apparently to make sure voters could see what was being done in their name. His message was blunt.
"Woke Eddie's billionaire puppet masters are running this disgusting and defamatory ad now. It reeks of desperation, but they're hoping the older generation won't realize it's an AI generated lie."
Massie's post also included a plea for donations, a sign that the Kentucky congressman sees the ad as both a smear and a fundraising opportunity heading into the final days before the primary.
The ad urges Kentucky voters to support Gallrein, but Greene, who has clashed with plenty of Republicans herself, was having none of it. She shared Massie's post and launched into a detailed defense that invoked federal law.
Greene's central claim is that the ad violates the TAKE IT DOWN Act, a law championed by First Lady Melania Trump and signed by President Trump. The law, as Greene described it, makes it illegal to knowingly publish intimate images of non-consenting adults, including AI-generated imagery, and requires platforms to remove such content within 48 hours of a victim's notification.
"This FAKE AI campaign ad LYING about Thomas Massie is a violation of The TAKE IT DOWN Act that First Lady Melania Trump championed, we voted for, and President Trump signed into law nearly a year ago!!!"
Greene left no ambiguity about her view of the ad's factual basis, writing that Massie "NEVER dined, held hands with, or intimately engaged with AOC and Ilhan Omar." She urged Massie to take legal action.
"Thomas Massie should sue the 3 Israel FIRST billionaires funding woke Eddies campaign and everyone involved in making this fake video and everyone who puts it out."
The three donors Greene referenced include GOP megadonor Paul Singer, hedge fund manager John Paulson, and a PAC connected to Miriam Adelson. All three were identified as initial big-money backers of MAGA Kentucky.
The ad's timing matters. The latest Big Data Poll showed Massie leading Gallrein 52 to 48 percent, a narrow margin, but one that falls within the poll's 4 percent margin of error. That tightness helps explain the escalation in tactics. With the May 19 primary looming, the PAC apparently decided that conventional opposition research wasn't going to close the gap.
Greene made a point of defending Massie's voting record, writing that he "has voted with Trump 91% of the time" and only broke ranks on specific issues. AOC, for her part, has been crafting a careful media strategy of her own as 2028 speculation builds, but there is no indication she or Omar had any involvement in or response to the ad.
Greene's list of Massie's dissents was pointed: "pushing war, protecting Epstein pedophiles, violating your freedoms with warrantless spying FISA 702, or overspending your money into further ruinous debt." In other words, Greene framed Massie's breaks with the party as principled stands, not betrayals.
She also took a direct shot at Gallrein's fitness for office.
"The only record Ed Gallrein has is being too timid, too weak, and too afraid, to debate Thomas Massie and refused to show up at campaign debates in the district he's trying to get elected in!!!"
If that characterization is accurate, it raises a fair question: why should Kentucky voters trust a candidate who won't even defend his positions in public but whose backers will fund AI-generated smears on his behalf?
The broader issue here extends past one Kentucky House race. AI-generated content in political advertising is still a frontier with few guardrails. The TAKE IT DOWN Act was designed primarily to address non-consensual intimate imagery, a growing plague in the age of deepfakes. Whether a political ad insinuating a romantic "throuple" through AI-generated visuals meets the statute's legal threshold is an open question. No formal legal action or enforcement proceeding has been reported in connection with the ad.
But Greene's argument has a certain logic. If the law prohibits AI-generated intimate imagery of non-consenting adults, and a political ad uses AI to fabricate scenes suggesting romantic or intimate conduct between real, named members of Congress, the spirit of the statute is plainly implicated, even if lawyers will argue over the letter.
The ad's own disclaimer, acknowledging it was "created using artificial intelligence", could cut both ways. It shows the creators knew they were fabricating content. It also signals to viewers that the images aren't real. Whether that transparency is a defense or an admission will depend on how courts eventually interpret the law.
What isn't debatable is the ad's intent: to associate Massie with two of the most polarizing figures on the progressive left in the most personal, visceral terms possible. That's not policy contrast. That's character fabrication, and voters in Kentucky deserve better from people claiming to act in their interests.
Follow the money and the picture gets clearer. MAGA Kentucky was created for one purpose: to remove Thomas Massie from Congress. Its initial funding came from some of the biggest wallets in Republican donor circles. Paul Singer, John Paulson, and a PAC tied to Miriam Adelson reportedly provided the early financial muscle.
These are not small-dollar grassroots donors from Kentucky's 4th District. They are national figures with national agendas. Greene's characterization of them as "billionaire puppet masters" may be her own framing, but the basic dynamic, outside money flooding a primary to punish an incumbent for specific votes, is a familiar pattern in American politics. Big-money campaign spending has drawn scrutiny across the aisle, from AOC's own controversial campaign expenditures to super PAC operations on both sides.
Massie's sin, in the eyes of the PAC, was opposing the "Big Beautiful Bill." That's a policy disagreement, the kind that primaries are supposed to settle through debate, voter outreach, and honest contrast. Instead, Kentucky voters are getting AI-generated fabrications about their congressman's personal life.
There's a real tension inside the Republican coalition that this episode exposes. Massie is a fiscal hawk and civil liberties advocate who has voted with the president the vast majority of the time. His dissents have been on issues, warrantless surveillance, spending, foreign policy, where a significant chunk of the conservative base shares his concerns.
Yet the apparatus arrayed against him treats any deviation as grounds for political destruction. And not just conventional destruction, the kind that involves fabricating intimate scenarios using artificial intelligence and broadcasting them to voters days before an election.
Greene, whatever one thinks of her style, identified the core problem clearly: a law designed to protect Americans from AI-generated intimate imagery is being tested by the very political operatives who claim to support the president who signed it. Criticism of members of Congress is fair game, fabricating fake intimate scenarios about them is something else entirely.
Meanwhile, Gallrein, the man the ad asks voters to support, has apparently declined to show up for campaign debates. Voters are left with a candidate who won't face his opponent in public but whose allies will manufacture AI deepfakes on his behalf.
The open questions remain significant. Will Massie pursue legal action under the TAKE IT DOWN Act? Will any enforcement body examine whether the ad meets the statute's threshold? And will Kentucky Republican voters reward or punish this kind of campaigning on May 19?
Ethics questions in campaigns aren't new. But AI has raised the stakes. When a PAC can manufacture scenes that never happened and broadcast them to an electorate, the old rules about mudslinging don't quite cover it.
If the TAKE IT DOWN Act means anything, this is exactly the kind of case that should test it. And if the law's backers won't enforce it against their own allies, voters will draw their own conclusions about who takes the rules seriously, and who only invokes them when it's convenient.
