Trump says his new bot is “damn good”, but it contradicts him on everything

Trump has launched his new government chatbot, but it is already contradicting him on every front, as major US media outlets have reported in recent days, highlighting the search tool’s initial responses on topics such as tariffs, inflation and the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol. The U.S. president unveiled America.gov during a high-profile event on Tuesday as a ‘damn good’ tool, with which ‘the entire government will be in the palm of your hand, and every question can be answered quickly and easily’. The chatbot goes by the name ‘America’; it was designed by many former employees of Elon Musk’s (the Doge) now-defunct Department of Efficiency, uses Grok and Gemini to power its features, and promises to use artificial intelligence to help American citizens complete administrative procedures with the public sector, such as replacing a social security card, registering to vote or finding information on how the government works.

In the launch video, Emily, who has just got married, needs to register her new surname and asks America.gov for help. But within hours, Americans had already started posting screenshots on social media showing the bot contradicting the promises made in the advert and all the theories closest to the President’s heart: ‘America’ cannot yet help with changing one’s surname or renewing one’s passport, contrary to what was shown in the launch video, in which the bot responded with a couple of questions before showing that the user’s request had been submitted and approved in a matter of seconds.

In response to the question “Who won the 2020 election?”, America.gov replies: “Joseph R. Biden Jr.”, citing electoral colleges, official documents and the popular vote, whilst in response to the question: “Trump has claimed that people are ‘twice as rich as they were a short while ago’. Does America.gov agree?”, it replies: “No. Data from the Federal Reserve does not show a doubling of American household wealth since 20 January 2025”. Regarding the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021, it describes the rioters as “a crowd that broke in and attacked the police”. And on the Trump Administration’s flagship domestic policy bill, the bot replied that “on average, it has made America’s poorest people even poorer and America’s richest people even richer”. Although it cannot yet perform any of the promised tasks, Ed Forst, head of one of the agencies responsible for the website, said the bot can be trusted because “it uses data sourced directly from the government”.