'Not my voice': US hockey star objects to White House's AI video

"They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple syrup eating f---s a lesson," Tkachuk appears to say in the official White House account's February 22, 2026 video, with the expletive bleeped out. "Canada, we own you little bro."

With the Lynyrd Skynyrd song "Free Bird" blaring in the background, the clip cuts from Tkachuk to highlights from the United States's win over Canada at the Milan-Cortina Games, a 2-1 overtime victory that marked the Americans' first Olympic title since 1980 when the "Miracle on Ice" team famously beat the Soviet Union in route to gold.

"Silver does NOT shine just as bright," the White House wrote in the caption of the video, which then spilled across platforms, including X and Facebook.

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Screenshot from TikTok taken February 27, 2026

The video spread as controversy engulfed the men's team after locker room footage showed several players laughing as US President Donald Trump said during a congratulatory call that he would be "impeached" if he did not invite the US women, who also won gold, to his State of the Union address.

Trump -- who has repeatedly clashed with Canada since returning to office in 2025, imposing tariffs and threatening to annex it -- sought to seize on national enthusiasm over the US men's team's performance by introducing the players at the address to cheers and chants of "USA!"

He also announced he was awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor, to the squad's goalie.

The clip of Tkachuk the White House posted to TikTok, however, is an AI-generated fake.

"Well, it's clearly fake, because it's not my voice and not my lips moving," Tkachuk, who plays professionally for the National Hockey League in Canada's capital city, told reporters February 26 (archived here). "I'm not in control of any of those accounts. I know that those words would never come out of my mouth."

"It's not my voice and not what I was saying. I would never say that. That's not who I am," the Ottawa Senators captain continued. "So I guess I don't like that video."

A disclaimer below the White House's video says it "contains AI-generated media." TikTok says it automatically applies the label to content the platform identifies as "completely generated or significantly edited with AI" (archived here).

Yet comments under the White House's video showed many users were fooled, with some repeating the false quotes attributed to Tkachuk.

AFP traced the fake part of the White House's mashup to "@realquotesai," an account that posts AI-generated parody videos of athletes spouting made-up quotes. The account shared it to Instagram and YouTube on February 16, 2025 -- more than a year before the US team's Olympic gold.

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Screenshot from YouTube taken February 27, 2026

The account advertises Parrot, an AI voice generator app.

The fake borrows footage from a postgame press conference Tkachuk and his brother, fellow US hockey player Matthew Tkachuk, delivered after the team defeated Canada 3-1 during the Four Nations Face-Off tournament on February 15, 2025 (archived here).

With the contest following Trump's first early jabs at Canadian sovereignty, fans had booed during the pre-game singing of the US national anthem. The matchup then began with three fights in the opening nine seconds. The Tkachuk brothers were involved in the first two of the brawls.

As Brady Tkachuk addressed the chaotic start during the press conference, he scratched his head above his ear in the same manner as is shown in the dubbed-over version the White House shared online. But in the real footage, he did not call Canadians an expletive or refer to the country as "little bro."

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Screenshot from YouTube taken February 27, 2026

AFP has debunked other AI-generated misinformation here.