North Carolina 6th District candidate Mark Walker calls video shared by PAC a ‘deepfake’
HIGH POINT, N.C. (WGHP) — A North Carolina candidate for Congress is firing back after a PAC supporting his opponent posted what the campaign alleges is a “deepfake” video.
First Freedoms Foundation shared a video on Twitter, which appears to show former Rep. Mark Walker, a Republican candidate in North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District primary, speaking to a camera in a vehicle. A voice, which sounds similar to Walker’s but does not match speaker’s the lip movements, says, in part, “Just between you and me, I know I’m not qualified for the job in Congress.” The PAC alleged that the video shows a conversation between Walker and a “friend off camera.”
The PAC also shared a second video which it alleges was a “voicemail” received by “a previous Walker supporter.” In the video, a similar voice says, in part, “Colonel Castelli will most likely win because he has the serious military background and leadership skills I simply don’t have. Also, I have been caught in so many lies the public now knows more about me than my own family.”
Mark Walker’s campaign posted on X that the video is not real and alleges that it was faked using AI. His campaign shared the following comments:
“This is an egregious use of AI technology and sets an example of what not to do in a campaign,” Paul Shumaker, Walker’s campaign strategist, said. “The FEC has already made it clear that false AI content violates federal election law and we intend to explore all legal options.”
The same PAC came under fire from North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign after sharing a video of Robinson appearing to endorse Christian Castelli, one of Walker’s opponents in the District 6 race. Robinson’s campaign says the video was recycled from the previous election cycle when Robinson did endorse Castelli but was deceptively framed to appear that he was endorsing him in the 2024 primary, which he has not.
Both Robinson and Walker said that they would be pursuing legal options against this PAC.
When questioned about the PAC’s decisions, Castelli’s senior political advisor, Alfredo Rodriguez, said that the campaign is not affiliated with this PAC, describing it as a “thorn in our side” but stating that the campaign has not reached out to ask for the allegedly false videos and endorsements to stop citing the PAC’s First Amendment rights.
Rodriguez refers to the PAC’s actions as “silliness” and said he believes that these videos and tweets are hurtful to the campaign. He said the PAC has “nothing to do with Christian” and has not donated to the Castelli campaign.
Rodriguez also provided the following statements:
“We have five days left until Election Day. Clearly, the political circus of the campaign season is in full swing, deepfakes included.
We respect everyone’s decision to exercise their First Amendment rights. Campaigns naturally bring about heated and passionate discussions. We simply believe a criteria for those involved in the political discourse is they act like adults, not children.
If you or your group has a disagreement on an issue, state it. But state it accurately, make sure it is factual and do not lie or make it up. Simple.
There are plenty of shortcomings to expose in Mark Walker, his campaign, and his previous work that there is no need to make things up.”
The PAC responded to the allegations in a statement to FOX8.
Our PAC has a large group of content creators that post to our social media. Most are volunteers. The video in question, was posted during the evening hours after most of our team was not working by a new content creator and was never Sponsored by the PAC and was never used by the PAC for any advertising but was discovered organically from our Twitter account by the followers. When discovered it was removed within a few hours and the creator advised of this action. Our Twitter account has a large number of followers thus someone from the Walker campaign must have seen this before our vetting team that post paid advertising approved by the PAC.
In fact, the video was only seen according the Twitter Analytics by 86 viewers before it was taken down. The copied video from our twitter account reproduced on Mark Walker’s Twitter account https://twitter.com/RepMarkWalker has now been seen by over 6,800 viewers. Frankly, we don’t know why Mark Walker would repost this deleted video to this base of supporters unless he is trying to look like a victim, which he is clearly not.
We encourage you in your reporting to look at Mark Walker, who served as a music minister before representing the NC 6th district in 2015, has been accused of faking endorsements from Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senator Markwayne Mullen, and Reps Gus Bilirakas and Matt Gates have either pulled their endorsements of Walker or said they never gave him in the first place. Now Veterans for Trump have launched an investigation into Mark Walker wrongful and false advertising on public television media. https://veteransfortrump.us/unauthorized-clone-website-issued-mark-walker-endorsement-investigation-launched/
As a PAC we are not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. We have not association with Mark Walker or any other candidate.
First Freedoms Foundation PAC
The video is no longer viewable on the X feed but it was still available Thursday morning in multiple tweets.
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