President Donald Trump’s voice appears in a new Fannie Mae advertisement that uses an artificial-intelligence–cloned narration, the Associated Press reported on Sunday, Jan. 18. The video includes a disclaimer stating that the voice is generated by artificial intelligence, and the report said the narration uses Trump’s permission.
In the one-minute ad, Fannie Mae uses Trump’s digitized voice to promise an “all new Fannie Mae” and to call the company the “protector of the American Dream.” Trump’s voice says, “For generations, home ownership meant security, independence, and stability.” It then adds, “But today, that dream feels out of reach for too many Americans not because they stopped working hard but because the system stopped working for them.”
The ad is part of a wider push by the Trump administration to address voter concerns about affordability, including in the housing market, the Associated Press said. Trump planned to talk about housing at his appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where world leaders and corporate executives are meeting this week, according to the report.
Fannie Mae and its counterpart Freddie Mac buy mortgages that meet their risk criteria from banks, a structure the report described as helping provide liquidity for the housing market. The two firms, which have been under government control since the Great Recession, guarantee roughly half of the $13 trillion U.S. home loan market, the Associated Press reported.
The ad also says Fannie Mae will work with the banking industry to approve more would-be homebuyers for mortgages, according to the Associated Press. Trump and Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte have said they want to sell shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on a major stock exchange, though the report said no concrete plans have been set.
The Associated Press also tied the ad’s message to recent housing proposals discussed publicly by Trump and Pulte. They have floated extending the 30-year mortgage to 50 years to lower monthly payments, the report said, adding that Trump appeared to back off the idea after critics said longer-term loans would reduce people’s ability to build housing equity and increase their own wealth.
Separately, the report said Trump directed the federal government to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds, describing the move as intended to help reduce mortgage rates amid anxiety about home prices. The report said Trump said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have $200 billion in cash that would be used for the purchase, and it said he earlier this month also called for blocking large institutional investors from buying houses, saying a ban would make it easier for younger families to buy their first homes.
The use of an AI-cloned Trump voice drew attention in part because of what the report described as Trump’s prior complaints about the Biden administration using autopen devices to apply Trump’s signature to laws, pardons or executive orders. The Associated Press noted an earlier report issued by House Republicans did not include concrete evidence that autopen was used to sign Biden’s name without his knowledge.
The Associated Press said it is not known who cloned Trump’s voice for the Fannie Mae ad. It said ElevenLabs, a company tied to a separate Trump-family AI voice use, told the news organization in an email that the audio of Trump’s voice in the Fannie Mae ad was not generated by ElevenLabs. The report said the White House did not respond to a request for comment.