President Donald Trump and a fellow world leader revived a growing scandal that has kept the White House scrambling for months.
Trump, 80, shared a bizarre image on his Truth Social platform to recap the first day of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit.
The photo has the internet doing double takes after people mistook one woman for one of his most loyal staffers.
Trump welcomed Xi with a 100-foot red carpet and a military band as two B-1 bombers flew overhead during the arrival ceremony on Sept. 23.
The U.S. president and first lady Melania Trump stood below Xi’s plane as he and his wife, Peng Liyuan, exited.
The two couples posed for photographers together on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. The respective national anthems were playing in the background.
The viral image Trump shared shows him saluting as a slightly smirking Xi stands before an “Air China” plane.
The words “Only Trump” appear above their heads, with 13 stars behind them. Other details raised red flags and left many wondering if the image was AI-generated.
Internet users pointed out the plane at the top of the image and that Trump had one glove on his hand, instead of two. One person even noticed, “They slimmed him down by 50 lbs.”
“Generated using AI. It’s interesting that a N. Harp ended up there too,” noted a second person.
Many assumed the image showed Trump’s close confidante standing off to the side.
If Harp could have sent the doctored photo of Trump and Xi, fingers pointed to the president’s blond executive assistant, Natalie Harp.
Outspoken Trump critic Aaron Rupar was among the first online users to assume the image showed Harp with Trump and Xi.
About 10 minutes later, he called “AI slop,” opening the floodgates for other X users to offer their takes on the peculiar posting on Trump’s page. Harp was a main target of the onslaught.
One person speculated, “So – Natalie was mad that Melania was there – edited her out, put herself in, and posted it on Trump’s Truth Social account. Totally normal behavior if you are Glenn Close’s character from ‘Fatal Attraction.’”
Another said, “WHAT?!? Wait a minute. She has access to his socials too. She posts for him. She did that I bet. She needs help.”
Much later, Rupar discovered the original image, adding, “So this story is WAY wilder than I thought.”
“But there is one key difference — MONICA CROWLEY’S FACE HAS BEEN EDITED TO LOOK LIKE NATALIE HARP’S. WTF is going on here?”
He confessed that the woman in the image was Monica Crowley, the State Department’s chief of protocol. Rupar also claimed someone edited the image to make the face look like Harp’s.
Some also noted that the AI edit removed Crowley’s facial hair, making her look more like Harp.
“You can tell who made it,” a third individual admitted. Another said, “Plagiarizer, Monica Crowley gets AI cropped by Natalie Harp? I smell a blond cat fight. Doesn’t [Melania] have a dog in this fight?”
This latest ordeal involving Harp follows accusations that the White House cropped her out of a previous photo during the Freedom 250 Grand Prix in August. Melania stood by Trump’s side at that sporting event in Washington, D.C.
Rumors of a behind-the-scenes turf war between Melania and Natalie gained more fuel after Trump’s breakfast-time Truth Social post.
The likelihood of more drama playing out over Trump and Natalie’s closeness seems to be inescapable.
View on Threads
