Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden received a cease-and-desist letter Wednesday from attorneys representing Rebecca Cooke, his Democratic challenger for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, over the use of AI deepfake videos against his opponent.
The letter references a deepfake video Van Orden posted to X on Aug. 4 purporting to show Cooke on the campaign trail with former President Joe Biden stating that she intends “to take advantage of as much corruption as possible and give every illegal alien free health care.”
“You are airing this false content to attempt to fool the voters of Wisconsin into believing she said something she did not to harm her reputation for your own political gain,” Ben Stafford of Elias Law Group wrote in the letter on behalf of Cooke’s campaign.
Van Orden has posted several similar videos to his X account: One depicts an AI-generated Cooke saying, “Let the peasants eat cake. They will vote for me anyway.” In another, a fake video of Cooke says, “There is a 100% chance I just voted for two communists.”
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Wisconsin is one of 33 states that regulates the use of deepfakes in political communications. The state does not outright ban campaigns from using this technology, but it mandates disclosure that the video was AI-generated.
“Not only are these ads beneath the dignity of your office, but Wisconsin’s common law of defamation fills the gaps yet remaining in Wisconsin’s statutory protections against fake AI videos,” the letter said.
The attorneys asserted that Cooke could seek a defamation claim over the statements Van Orden’s campaign falsely attributed to her — though the letter did not specify taking down the videos, saying that Cooke’s legal team will be “monitoring whether this defamatory conduct persists.”
On Thursday, Van Orden posted another AI-generated video of a red duck in a T-shirt, saying “I demand DVO cease-and-desist from telling the truth about me!”
Earlier this week, he posted another video of a red duck saying “Cease and desist!” wearing a T-shirt referencing Democratic Socialists of America, which has not endorsed Cooke after she beat her DSA-backed challenger, Emily Berge, in August.
In a statement released after he received the letter, Van Orden said Cooke has been running attack ads with “false claims” against him.
“Cooke has now run three separate ads making false claims about my record, including easily disprovable, blatantly false attacks on my position on congressional stock trading and data centers,” Van Orden said. “She is not to be trusted and has proven over the last six years that she will say whatever it takes to get elected to Congress.”
Van Orden also recalled his Navy experience and directed Cooke to file her cease-and-desist claim against him through a satirical, unofficial military document called the “Hurt Feelings Report.”
Cooke connected Van Orden’s use of the AI deepfakes to his support for data centers in a statement shared with The Washington Sun.
“Derrick Van Orden can’t run on his record, and is instead spending his time and energy producing AI videos putting words in my mouth, pretending that I said things that I didn’t and that I support policies I do not,” Cooke said. “Ironically, these deep fakes are facilitated by the same data centers Derrick Van Orden gave special tax breaks at the expense of our energy and health care bills.”
Cooke has called for a moratorium on data centers, while Van Orden has pushed for development to continue on the facilities if certain conditions are met.
This story has been updated with a comment from Cooke’s campaign.
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