President Donald Trump’s White House responded Wednesday after fabricated images appearing to show him locked in a kiss with a close aide on a golf course spread across social media this week.
The two images depicted Trump, 80, embracing a blonde woman identified online as Natalie Harp, his 35-year-old executive assistant, who has been nicknamed the president’s “human printer.”
“This is clearly a fake photo,” a White House official told the Daily Beast.
The clearer version contains several apparent signs of artificial intelligence, including a right hand with six fingers. Snopes also found a watermark indicating that the image had been generated using OpenAI Tools, according to the report.
“The blurry version of the photo lacked the same watermark and was too low-resolution to show any typical AI anomalies, Snopes reported, but is fake nonetheless,” the Daily Beast said Wednesday. A search by the outlet of major wire services found no authentic photograph showing Trump and Harp dressed in white together on a golf course.
The image was first traced to a YouTube thumbnail used by political commentator Keith Edwards. Edwards said his team found it online and did not create it, but acknowledged that the image had not been independently verified and that the woman’s identity could not be confirmed.
Harp has worked for Trump since 2022 and now earns a taxpayer-funded salary of $150,000.