Viral images of the US president kissing a White House aide: fact-checks found signs of AI generation, and a White House official called the image fake

What circulated. Snopes reports that two versions of one image, a higher-resolution version and a blurrier lower-resolution version, were shared on X, Threads and Instagram in mid-September 2026. They appear to show the president kissing a woman whose back is turned to the camera on a golf course. The earliest copy Snopes found through reverse image search was the thumbnail of a 14 September YouTube video by a political commentator, who told Snopes his team found the image online, did not create or alter it, and could not confirm who the woman was. Newsweek reports that the images circulated alongside comments treating the encounter as genuine, including allegations of an intimate relationship between the two.

The AI analyses. Snopes reports that an OpenAI verification tool detected a watermark in the higher-resolution version consistent with images generated or edited with OpenAI's tools, and that the woman's hand on the golf club has six fingers. Hany Farid of GetReal told Snopes that the higher-resolution version was derived from the lower-resolution one and carries a SynthID watermark. The Washington Post wrote on 19 September that the images were fakes made with generative AI tools, according to its own analysis using detection tools from OpenAI and Google; only the opening paragraphs of that article could be read.

Contrary and unresolved points. The lower-resolution version had no OpenAI watermark and was too blurry for visible anomalies, and Farid called its authenticity inconclusive; Snopes left the claim unrated. Snopes also reports that OpenAI's tool detected its watermark on a real photo in which only a small portion had been edited with AI, so the watermark alone does not show that the whole scene was generated. Newsweek reported that OpenAI's tool found no SynthID watermark or C2PA record linking the image to OpenAI products, while noting this did not rule out another AI system. Gizmodo reported that AI image detectors gave inconclusive results, some suggesting a real photo; it raised the possibility that someone upscaled the low-resolution version and added the extra finger, but judged it more likely that the clearer AI fake circulated first and others blurred it to hide the AI tells. Who first made the image, and with which tool, is not established.

The response. A White House official told Snopes the image was clearly a fake photo and told Newsweek that it came from Democrats who peddle fake images.

Images that analyses by Snopes and The Washington Post found to bear signs of generative AI showed the president apparently kissing a woman presumed to be a White House aide, and circulated with allegations of an intimate relationship; a White House official called the image fake.

Snopes, Newsweek, Gizmodo and The Washington Post published checks of the images between 15 and 19 September 2026. A White House official told Snopes and Newsweek the image was clearly a fake photo. Snopes left the claim unrated pending further evidence. No platform action, complaint or legal step concerning the images is reported in the sources read.