President Donald Trump set Truth Social alight late Sunday with an AI-generated video and a boastful caption depicting Iran's most important oil hub as obliterated — and critics were quick to condemn him for it.

"Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!" Trump captioned the clip, which showed an airman gazing out of an aircraft window as an oil terminal erupted in flames behind him. He followed up with a second AI video showing missiles pounding a coastal oilfield — and then, moments later, posted a clip of himself golfing.

There was no evidence that the island, which handles roughly 90% of Iran's oil exports, had been struck, and Iranian media reported no such attack. Kharg Island, located in the Persian Gulf, is the loading point for the bulk of Iran's crude shipments, making it a recurring focal point in speculation about how any strike on Iran's energy infrastructure could disrupt global oil flows. Overnight, U.S. forces did hit two Iranian rocket-launcher sites on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz — their first strikes on Iran in a month. The strait is one of the world's most important energy chokepoints, through which roughly a fifth of global oil consumption normally passes. Tehran responded with ballistic missiles aimed at U.S. bases in Jordan.

Critics reacted furiously to Trump's post, with several arguing it underscored how AI-generated imagery can be deployed at the highest level of government to depict events that never happened — a concern that has grown as synthetic media tools have become widely accessible.

"FACT CHECK: Kharg Island was not blown to smithereens," wrote political commentator Brian Krassenstein. "Trumps brain is apparently blown to smithereens."

Political scientist Glenn Diesen scoffed that "Kharg Island is not under attack, but Trump's sense of reality is under attack - assisted by AI."

Libertarian activist Caryn Ann Harlos was blunt: "He is a madman who must be stopped."

Others were simply bewildered.

"The video is AI slop. So I have no idea what to do with this information," posted right-wing activist Nick Sortor, who said he had "no reason to believe Kharg is actually under fire."

Richard Woodruff, a British volunteer supporting Ukraine since 2022, fumed that Trump was "literally sharing AI explosion slop and giggling like a little girl," and told "America" to "impeach this lunatic."

This is not the first time Trump has turned to AI content to promote his Iran war — a conflict he has escalated even while branding Iran a "failing nation." How Tehran and Washington calibrate further strikes around Iran's oil infrastructure, and whether platforms tighten handling of synthetic media posted by political leaders, remain open questions in the conflict's wake.