This past week, the Trump White House posted an image on social media that appeared to show Nekima Levy Armstrong, a lawyer who was arrested after an anti-ICE demonstration in Minnesota, weeping helplessly after being handcuffed. It was a blatant fake. Only minutes earlier, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had posted the original photo of Armstrong’s arrest, in which she appears calm, even resolute.
After the New York Times confronted White House officials with evidence that the second image had been “digitally altered,” probably using a generative AI tool such as Gemini or Grok, deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr responded with a post on X: “Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue.” You could almost hear the high-fives being exchanged; you could almost smell the medium-high-end hair products and lily of the valley-scented body spray.
