President Trump posted a series of photos on Truth Social showcasing restoration work at the White House, but one before-and-after image of a column appears to have been altered with AI. The Verge confirmed that Google's SynthID detector flagged the photo as "made or edited with OpenAI."
The image shows several visual inconsistencies, including mismatched step counts on either side of the column and nearly identical window reflections in the before and after shots. The "restored" column also looks unnaturally smooth, details first highlighted by Reddit users.
The other photos in the post did not carry the AI watermark. Real photos from June show people painting the White House, so the restoration may be genuine, but the White House did not respond to a request for comment. The post fits a broader pattern of AI use by Trump and the White House, which have previously shared AI-generated images.