President Donald Trump was livid on Saturday over a photo, shared online Friday by photographer William Moon, that became a meme for its less-than-flattering capture of his face looking two-toned in the wind as he returned from Charlotte, NC to the White House.
“More Fake News. This was photoshopped, obviously,” said President Trump, retweeting someone who was mocking the image. ” Anything to demean!”
Moon shared two versions on his @WhiteHousePhotos Twitter account.
And those photos were then shared by a lot of people in a joking or mocking manner…
… which eventually led to Trump’s response (above).
Trump’s claim that the image is photoshopped is undermined by the fact that the same basic shot of his face at that moment is available from multiple sources.
For example, photos of his arrival are available now from Getty Images, as seen in the below slides. Getty attributes the image to Al Drago, for Bloomberg.
As Buzzfeed notes, the degree of pigmentation on Trump’s face as he crossed the lawn
The replies and retweets of Trump’s objection have, naturally, started a second wave of war over whether this was a deliberate attempt to “demean” the President or simply an unflattering set of photos from different photographers on the same day at the same time showing the same thing.