Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden's bitter rivalry has been no more evident than in their war of words, which has continued as the 2024 U.S. presidential election nears.
Biden recently called Trump a "loser," labeling recent comments from the former president about NATO as "dumb" and shameful." Trump has continued to throw barbs that Biden is "corrupt," "the worst president" and "cognitively impaired."
However, a photo of the political rivals sharing a convivial, if legally dubious, moment went viral this week. It seemed to depict the pair sitting side-by-side with what looked like a bag of marijuana between them.
The Claim
A post on X, formerly Twitter, posted on February 22, 2024, viewed 2.9 million times, showed what appeared to be Donald Trump and Joe Biden sitting together, surrounded in smoke, with a bag of appeared to be weed.
The user who posted the photo wrote: "is this real."
The Facts
However unlikely the picture of the pair is, with Biden and Trump having spent very little time together, the lighting, photorealism and no immediately clear sign of AI manipulation at the very least makes this picture a more technically sophisticated edit.
Reverse image searches of Trump and Biden from the photo reveal no exact matches of either man, appearing to suggest this was more than a simplistic photoshop alteration.
There are some small clues that the image is bogus. Trump's ear appears to be the wrong shape compared to other photos, while Biden's chin appears to disappear into his neck. The low resolution of the image makes detecting the differences more difficult.
Further, Trump has repeatedly said he doesn't drink or smoke, even before we get to the legal implications such a photo would bring.
The photo has been circulated online since January. Newsweek traced the picture to Instagram account @manmeetsmachine, who included it among a gallery of similar images, on January 8, 2024.
The photo that was shared on X cropped a section that included a @manmeetsmachine watermark. The user states in their Instagram bio that "Nothing Is Real -Ai & Photoshop Madness."
In the original post, @manmeetsmachine included the hashtag "#ai #dalle3 #aiart," suggesting the photo was made using an AI digital image generator.
Newsweek has reached out to @manmeetsmachine via Instagram for comment.
The Ruling
False.
Apart from the fact that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have rarely been pictured in the same room together, let alone enjoyed each other's company, this image can be traced to a social media account dedicated to AI image generation.
Other than its absurdity, and the fact that Trump neither drinks nor smokes, the photo botches some of Trump's and Biden's facial features.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
