CNN said it regrets broadcasting a doctored picture of former U.S. President Donald Trump standing next to conservative activist Laura Loomer in which he appears to be extremely overweight.
The news network aired the altered photo during at least three different TV shows on Sept. 13 and 14, 2024. Those segments reported that Loomer, who joined Trump during two 9/11 remembrance ceremonies, had previously posted (archived) a video promoting a conspiracy theory with the words, "9/11 was an inside job."
CNN credited the image to X user @theliamnissan, who posted the picture on Sept. 13 (archived). The account's bio mentions it publishes parody content.
Reached by direct message, @theliamnissan told Snopes, "I just [screenshotted] it off somebody else's Twitter post. I honestly thought it was real. Trump's weight has fluctuated and I thought it was just a really bad camera angle."
Users later shared their own altered pictures showing the same image of Trump and Loomer standing near boxes of classified documents, looking at a KFC restaurant and visiting a McDonald's, among others.
The Real Photo and AI
Loomer published the original photo on Aug. 13, 2023, posting (archived) in part, "Having the time of my life spending the entire day with President Trump watching the #LivGolf tournament."
The altered picture displayed signs of manipulation by an artificial-intelligence tool, in particular the bottom of Trump's shirt and the top of his pants. Pants were not visible in the original picture. (We previously published tips for spotting AI-generated pictures.)
CNN Aired the Altered Picture at Least 3 Times
According to the TV news archives on Archive.org, CNN broadcast the doctored photo at least three times. For example, the picture appeared three minutes into the Sept. 13 episode of "The Lead With Jake Tapper," anchored that day by Pamela Brown.
Hours later, CNN aired the photo six minutes into an episode of anchor Anderson Cooper's show, "Anderson Cooper 360."
Then, on Sept. 14, the picture appeared five minutes into an episode of "Smerconish" — a Saturday-morning show anchored by Michael Smerconish.
Following the Saturday broadcast of "Smerconish," Loomer posted (archived) on X of Cooper's prior airing of the doctored image, "Why is @CNN using photo shopped pics of President Trump? Very unethical of you @andersoncooper." X user @_johnnymaga also noted (archived) the network's mistake in a prominent post receiving nearly 450,000 views.
CNN Anchors: 'We Regret the Error'
In the following week, Brown, Cooper and Smerconish all later read from a statement, in which they expressed regret for the error. Brown and Cooper read the statement on Sept. 16. Smerconish read a similar statement on Sept. 21. The statement read:
On Friday evening and on Saturday, CNN aired a number of segments that briefly showed an image of former President Donald Trump and Laura Loomer taken from social media. On review, this image had been digitally altered by a third party and should not have been included. We regret the error.
Following CNN's admission of airing the doctored Trump photo, Loomer posted (archived) on Sept. 25, "WATCH: CNN was just forced to issue an on air retraction after @andersoncooper and other hosts ran fake & photoshopped pictures of me and President Trump on air last week in an effort to demonize me for the crime of flying on his plane to the Presidential debate."
Loomer also mistakenly posted (archived) of Brown's on-air statement — without realizing Cooper himself also read the network's statement — "Hey @andersoncooper. Why are you sending a female colleague of yours to apologize for your defamation?" She also said in the same post that she intended to file a lawsuit unless Cooper himself issued a retraction in text form on X.
We emailed CNN to ask for further comment but did not receive a response.
For further reading, we previously reported the facts of a misleading rumor related to one of the 9/11 remembrance ceremonies attended by Trump and Loomer, in which a popular YouTube user named Life with Recklezz falsely claimed a video showed U.S. Vice President Kamala losing her temper at ground zero in New York. That video has since received nearly 1.1 million views.