Was an image of a magazine cover featuring a painting of President Trump wearing a crown and the slogan "Long live the king" authentically posted by the White House? Yes, that's true: The image featured a backdrop of iconic New York buildings and used the same font and distinctive red border used by Time magazine. Detection tools say the image was AI generated.
The image appeared in a post on X (archived here) published on February 19, 2025, by the offical account of the White House, accompanied by the following quote from President Trump:
"CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!" -President Donald J. Trump
This is what the image looked like:
(Source: X download on Wed February 19 at 22:57:42 2025 UTC)
The White House also posted the image to its Instagram account (archived here) and Facebook page (archived here).
AI detection tool Hive said it was 99.8 percent likely the image contained AI-generated or deepfake content:
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken by Lead Stories on Wed February 19 at 23:02:12 2025 UTC)
AI detection tool Sightengine likewise concluded that the image was "Likely AI-generated" with a 99 percent certainty:
(Source: Sightengine screenshot taken by Lead Stories on Wed February 19 at 23:12:12 2025 UTC)
