Brady Tkachuk has responded after the White House posted an AI-generated TikTok clip that appeared to show him making derogatory comments about Canada.
Team USA’s men’s hockey side recently claimed gold at the Winter Olympics, edging out their long-time Canadian rivals in the final.
The match was a tight, heated affair that finished 2-1 to the Americans, and saw Jack Hughes lose his front teeth during the contest.
Team USA’s women also won gold. They were reportedly invited to the White House to mark the achievement, but declined Donald Trump’s invitation after he joked he was only inviting them so he wouldn’t face impeachment.
Separately, the White House has also drawn criticism connected to the men’s team — with Brady Tkachuk at the center of it.
After the win, the White House shared an AI clip of Tkachuk on TikTok in which he appears to say: “They booed our national anthem, so I had to come out and teach those maple-syrup-eating [expletive] a lesson. Canada, we own you little bro.”
The video was captioned with ‘Silver does NOT shine just as bright’.
Online reaction was swift, with many viewers criticizing the account for sharing an apparent deepfake.
“Keeping it classy as per usual,” one person wrote. A second said: “The WHITE HOUSE is posting AI deepfakes???? Good lord pray for us.”
Tkachuk has since addressed the clip, emphasizing that it is not real.
“Well, it’s clearly fake, because it’s not my voice, not my lips moving,” he said, per BBC Sport.
“I’m not in control of any of those accounts,” Tkachuk added. “I know that those words would never come out of my mouth, so I can’t do anything about it.
“It’s not what I was saying. I would never say that. It’s not who I am. So I guess I don’t like that video.”
The next Winter Olympics is scheduled for 2030 in the French Alps. At the most recent Games, eight core sports were split across 16 disciplines — but two events could be removed by the time the Olympics returns.
Those under review are snowboard parallel giant slalom (PGS) and the Nordic combined events.
The possible cuts are being considered after those events reportedly drew relatively limited TV audiences at Milano Cortina 2026.