Dem 3rd CD candidate Rebecca Cooke has sent GOP rival Derrick Van Orden a cease-and-desist letter demanding he stop posting AI deepfakes of her to make it seem like she made comments she’s never said.
Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, mocked the request in a post on X with the image of a “Hurt Feeling Report.”
“Please have this done in triplicate and submit to the circular file for review,” Van Orden added.
The letter from Cooke’s attorney to Van Orden via his campaign email pointed to an Aug. 4 video that the congressman posted on X that purported to show Cooke on the campaign trail in Eau Claire with former President Joe Biden behind her.
The letter calls the video “pure fiction” and states she never made the comments attributed to Cooke. The ad had Cooke saying she seeks “to take advantage of as much corruption as possible and give every illegal alien free healthcare.”
“You are airing this false content to attempt to fool the voters of Wisconsin into believing she said something she did not to harm her reputation for your own political gain,” the letter states.
Attorney Ben Staffed added the campaign planned to monitor Van Orden’s X account for future misuses of AI to defame Cooke.