President Donald Trump accused The New York Times on Monday of doctoring a photo of his Doral Miami golf resort to “artificially” add mold to the clubhouse exterior, extending a weeklong crusade against the outlet over a single photograph.
“Look what The New York Times did to my beautiful Doral!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, alongside an image comparing the Times’ photograph of the clubhouse with a different photo of the same building. “They doctored the photo. They artificially put mold all over the building when referring to it in a story!”
The Times has denied altering the image. “This image is not doctored,” a spokesperson told The Independent, adding that a Times photographer took it in 2020.
The photo, by Scott McIntyre, ran with an Oct. 4 Times report on the ethics of Trump’s plan to host the G20 summit at Doral. The report also detailed how Trump made at least $2.2 billion last year and accepted a luxury jet from Qatar. But the building’s appearance became the president’s focus rather than any ethics questions.
The images Trump placed side by side are not the same photograph. His version shows different landscaping, no palm trees and the even lighting of resort marketing photography. The New Republic identified it as a promotional photo from the Trump Organization’s website. Photos in an April PGA Tour article show the building in a color closer to the Times’ image than to Trump’s, AlterNet noted.
Trump aired similar grievances last week, posting that Times staffers were “STONE COLD LOSERS,” “Totally dishonest” and “going TO HELL.”