President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump hold a signing ceremony for the "Take It Down Act" at the White House.
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00:00The White House
00:24Good afternoon and welcome to the White House.
00:28It's an honor to join you here today for the signing of the Take a Down Act,
00:33a national victory that will help parents and families protect children from online exploitation.
00:42This legislation is a powerful step forward in our efforts to ensure that every American,
00:50especially young people, can feel better protected from their image or identity being abused
00:59through non-consensual intimate imagery of I and CII.
01:05Artificial intelligence and social media are the digital candy for the next generation.
01:13Sweet, addictive and engineered to have an impact on the cognitive development of our children.
01:22But unlike sugar, these new technologies can be weaponized, shaped beliefs and sadly affect emotions and even be deadly.
01:35Over the past few months, I have met with brave survivors, deeply loving families and Carrie advocates
01:44who know firsthand the emotional and psychological toll of NCII and deep fake abuse.
01:54Alliston Berry stood boldly for change, despite the risk posed to her and her family by speaking out and making her voice heard.
02:07Alliston, your voice and the voices of so many like you made this bill a national priority.
02:15Many thanks to members of Congress, both parties, for passing this legislation, including Speaker Johnson,
02:25Senator Cruz, Senator Kolbachar, Congresswoman Salazar, Congresswoman Dean, and Congressman Guthrie,
02:34and so many more.
02:36Thank you all for coming together to prioritize people over politics.
02:45As first lady, my Be Best initiative is focused on improving children's well-being, encouraging kindness,
02:56and creating a safer online environment for our youth.
03:01Today, I'm proud to say that the values of Be Best would be reflected in the law of the land.
03:10I want to thank my husband, President Trump, for standing with us on this effort.
03:22His signature on this new law is not where our work ends on this issue.
03:30Now, we look to the Federal Trade Commission and the private sector to do their part.
03:38Today, through the Take It Down Act, we affirm that the well-being of our children is central to our future of our families in America.
03:51Now, it is my pleasure to introduce the President. Thank you.
03:58Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
04:00That was a great job.
04:01Well, I want to thank everybody. We just spent two and a half hours talking to Vladimir Putin.
04:07And I think some progress has been made. It's a terrible situation going on over there.
04:245,000 young people every single week are being killed. So, hopefully, we did something.
04:32We also spoke to the heads of most of the European nations, and we're trying to get that whole thing wrapped up.
04:40What a shame that it ever started in the first place. So, but I want to thank Milani for your leadership in this very important issue.
04:47It's an amazing issue. America is blessed to have such a dedicated and compassionate First Lady.
04:53I would tell you, she is very dedicated. In fact, if you look at just what I heard, Putin just said they respect your wife a lot.
05:03I said, what about me? No, they like Milani better. That wasn't good. I don't know if that was good. I'm okay with it. I'm okay.
05:12I also want to congratulate the First Lady in securing $25 million in the first fiscal year, 2026, budget to provide housing and support for youth transitioning out of the force of care.
05:25And I can say that she loves children, and you really worked very hard on this.
05:30And you had a lot of help from some friends of mine right here. And a lot of the senators are here and congressmen, and I appreciate you all being here.
05:38We're all so grateful to be joined by people that are just in love with what we're doing. It's such an important situation.
05:47And commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission and the CEO of X, Linda Yaccarina.
05:53Where are you, Linda? Where are you, Linda? Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Stand up. Thank you, Linda. Great job. You're doing a great job. It's a big deal, right? That's great.
06:05Today, it's my honor to officially sign the Take It Down Act into law. It's a big thing, very important. So horrible what takes place.
06:14This will be the first ever federal law to combat the distribution of explicit, imaginary, posted without subjects' consent.
06:24Take horrible pictures, and I guess sometimes even make up the pictures, and they post it without consent or anything else.
06:31And very importantly, this includes for forgeries generated by artificial intelligence known as deep fakes. We've all heard about deep fakes. I have them all the time, but nobody does anything.
06:42I asked Pam, can you help me, Pam? She says, no, I'm too busy. Too busy doing other things. Don't worry. You'll survive. But a lot of people don't survive.
06:50That's true and so horrible. With the rise of AI image generation, countless women have been harassed with deep fakes and other explicit images distributed against their will.
07:01This is the wrong, and it's just so horribly wrong. And it's a very abusive situation like in some cases people have never seen before. And today we're making it totally illegal.
07:11Thank you. Upon hearing the stories of so many women affected, our first lady made stopping these abuses a top priority. And she was given tremendous support because people, she'd go up to people and talk about it. They'd say, yeah, we know about it. We have the problem. Can we do something? And she did something about it. With the help of a lot of the people, especially the political people sitting here and talking about it.
07:29Today, among Melania's guests in the gallery, during my address to the joint session of Congress was a 15 year old young person, Ellison Berry, whose image was turned into an illicit deep fake by a peer. Ellison, where are you?
07:45Are you around? Stand up, darling. That's fine. Beautiful. Great. Thank you. That's fantastic. Ellison quickly became a powerful advocate committed to preventing other girls from suffering the same abuse. Ellison, we saw that.
08:15We salute you and we salute you. And we thank you very much. And it's an honor to have you with us today. Great. Great job.
08:23Also with us are several other brave Americans whose lives were rocked by online harassment, including Francesca Manny, as well as a South Carolina state representative, Brandon Guffey, and his family who lost their son to suicide after he was targeted in an Internet extortion scam, of which you have a lot of them.
08:45A lot. I want to thank you both for your incredible work and to reach this important day. Could you stand up, please? Thank you. Thank you very much. Great job. I read about it. Thank you very much.
08:58It's a real honor to have you here. Because there's no place like the White House, I found out. You know, you have a lot of places. And I just left some of the richest places and we loved them.
09:08And we they gave us a nice contribution of about $5 trillion. But this is a special place. Even they talk about it. So it's great to have everybody here. Under the law, I will sign in just a moment.
09:20Anyone who intentionally distributes explicit images without the subject's consent will face up to three years in prison. In addition, this law establishes new civil liabilities for online platforms that refuse to take these images down promptly upon request.
09:36We will not tolerate online sexual exploitation and especially it's gone on at levels that nobody's ever seen before. It's getting worse and worse. And I think this is going to hopefully stop it.
09:48Hopefully stop it. And not easy to do. People talk about all sorts of first amendment, second amendment. They talked about any any amendment they could make up. And we got it through because of some very brave people, including some very brave politicians in the audience.
10:06I want to thank the bill sponsor, Senator Ted Cruz. Ted, stand up, please.
10:11Thank you, Ted.
10:16Very effective person. And Congresswoman Maria Salazar, friend of mine. Thank you.
10:22Thank you very much.
10:27For their amazing work. And thanks also to the 99 senators and 408 members of Congress who voted in favor of the bill.
10:35Wow. I wish we could get that vote some other things. We have another bill coming up. Do you think we'll get that vote?
10:41Maybe not. We should, but we probably won't.
10:44But working with our first lady, we've shown that bipartisanship is still possible. That's true.
10:4999 senators. That's incredible. Senators, stand up. Look at that. John, you're here. Look at all of the senators. This is big stuff. I'm in trouble because I don't have your names.
10:58They didn't give me these names. We have so many. We have half of the Senate here. Now they're all going to hate me because I can't introduce you. Oh, we don't have the time for that. I have to get back to Putin and people.
11:11Well, thank you very much for being here, all of you, and congressmen, a lot of them, and women. Working with our first lady, though, we've shown that that bipartisanship is possible. I mean, it's the first time I've seen such a level of bipartisanship, and it's a beautiful thing to do. I'm not even sure you realize, honey, you know, a lot of the Democrats and Republicans don't get along so well. You've made them get along, and she didn't even know about that. She didn't know we had a problem. She didn't know we had a problem.
11:39She didn't know we had our problems. But I want to thank you, honey. You've done amazing that this was done when you started it. I said, I don't know, it sounds like a tough one, and yet a very important one, and you got it done. So I congratulate you, and I congratulate Jane Maria, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you. And we'll sign the bill. Thank you.
12:39Phones down. Phones down. That's fantastic. Okay, you ready? Yes. Phones down. Phones down. Phones. Phones down.
12:58You want to sign anything? I might sign it anyway. She deserves to sign it.
13:05Thank you very much. Thank you very much, everyone. And you have some pens here, most importantly, right?
13:28Oh, look at these white pens. I've never seen them before. I want one of them. I've never seen them before.
13:32I want one of them. I've never seen them before. I take that.
13:35Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
13:39Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
13:41Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
13:43Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
13:45Go ahead. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
13:48I want his brother to introduce you to Brandon. He lost his son, Gavin.
13:52Let me get up to the state legislator in South Carolina.
13:55He's incredibly brave. And his whole family.
13:57Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
13:59Mr. President, please me.
14:02pounds to meet me for sausage.
14:06Yes. Thank you very much.
14:08Thank you very much.
14:10Yes. Yes. Yes.
14:41Ladies and gentlemen, please and may I speak until the president and the first lady has departed the Rose Garden. Thank you.