Last week, Donald Trump made an unsupported claim that he would be indicted on Tuesday, March 21, over alleged hush money payments to adult entertainment star Stormy Daniels. That indictment did not materialize, but a wave of humorous artificial intelligence-generated images imagining the former president being hauled away by police in front of cameras has been circulating on social media for days.
The images were first posted by Eliot Higgins, founder of the international research collaborative Bellingcat, and depict Trump in dramatic scenes surrounded by officers trying to detain and arrest him. “Making pictures of Trump getting arrested while waiting for Trump’s arrest,” Higgins wrote in a tweet on Monday. He later said the images were made using the AI platform Midjourney, and the post had drawn 4.9 million views as of this writing.
Trump had urged supporters to protest on his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday, March 18, claiming there had been a leak from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. According to the Associated Press, the former president sought to stir anger among his followers, posting, “PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST.” When Tuesday came and went without an arrest, reactions from Trump’s base appeared muted, prompting questions about whether he could still rally supporters as he once did before the January 6, 2021, US Capitol insurrection.
Many on Twitter responded to the moment with humor, noting that Trump is the first current or former US president to face criminal charges. Internet personality Hasan Piker, known as HasanAbi, marked the occasion by wearing a plum suit and gold tie on Tuesday and posting Higgins’s images alongside a mirror selfie. User “Nick (@kra)” also shared a widely circulated TikTok video of a person miming possible suicide attempts, apparently reflecting collective frustration that the arrest never happened.
Even with the online satire, NBC’s local affiliate News 4 reported that the New York Police Department increased security, telling all officers to be ready for possible violence. The NYPD placed barricades around Trump Tower and the Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday evening ahead of planned protests and has been monitoring social media.
