It has, as usual, been a busy week for President Donald J. Trump. No, he hasn’t negotiated an actual peace agreement with Iran (beyond a hazy and already-violated memorandum of understanding), or ended Russia’s war on Ukraine (which he promised to end within a day), or, back at home, tamed mounting inflation (because he insists “affordability” is a word made up by—speaking of made-up words—“Dumocrats”). No, it’s been a busy week for the 47th president to post weird images on Truth Social.
His latest is a seeming proposed addition to the decorative program at the White House. A post from 8:23 p.m. on Monday, June 29, later shared on Instagram by the White House and the president, shows a giant bald eagle, all in gold, clutching a stars-and-stripes shield, on the Truman balcony on the White House’s facade.
“A Golden Gift to the White House for its 250th Birthday Year!”, writes Trump, with his characteristic misuse of Capitalization.
CNN reports that the image metadata reveals that it was created with Google AI. There are also flaws in the image: the stars-and-stripes shield the eagle carries has 11 stars, rather than the customary 13, standing for the first British colonies in what would become the US. The balcony’s railing in the AI-generated image is also slightly different from the actual one.
More evidence that the photo is fake, if it were needed, comes from photographer Andrew Leyden, who posted photos of the White House on X an hour after Trump’s post, with no eagle present, captioned, “This is what the Truman Balcony looks like at 9:30pm Monday night.”
Trump’s caption to the photo, wishing the White House a happy birthday, is also factually incorrect, note the sleuths at USA Today. While this week is the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, it is not the 250th birthday of the White House, which was built between 1792 and 1800. So, the White House’s 250th birthday will be in 2050, by which time Trump will presumably no longer be president, or, alternatively, he will be in his eighth term in office.
It’s at least the second bizarre art-related AI-generated image the leader of the free world has Truthed this week. On Monday, he posted the image of a bizarre AI artwork by artist Ray Simon that combines images of historical scenes and figures such as George Washington, the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore with a robot and a rocket ship, synthesizing the nation’s past and its hopeful future. That post also contained a factual error, though perhaps more a technicality: “Great painting!” said the president, about what is actually a print.
Trump’s modifications to the White House have notoriously gone far beyond a fake image of the national bird on the Truman balcony, and his proposed alterations to the city of Washington, DC, are many, and highly controversial, ranging from razing the East Wing of the White House to proposing a 250-foot victory arch, which House Democracts have moved to stop, and a sculpture garden of “American heroes,” which preservationists have sued to stop. Time will tell if the president will actually affix a golden bald eagle to the White House, as he has plastered gold decor all over the Oval Office, or if it will remain a conceptual artwork.
