Key Takeaways
President Donald Trump dismissed a viral video showing objects being thrown from a White House window as artificially generated on Tuesday, contradicting his own administration's earlier explanation that it depicted routine maintenance work.
The controversy began when a brief video posted to the Instagram account "washingtonianprobs" over the weekend showed a person in white pants stepping onto a second-floor windowsill and tossing what appeared to be a black plastic bag and other items to the ground below. The second floor houses the presidential residence.
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Trump claims the video is fake
When Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy showed Trump the video during an Oval Office press conference on Tuesday, the president immediately questioned its authenticity.
"That's probably AI-generated," Trump said. "It's got to be because I know every window up there. … Number one, they're sealed, and number two, each window weighs about 600 pounds."
Trump elaborated on the physical constraints of the White House windows, explaining that they are heavily armored and bulletproof. "She said, 'Love to have a little fresh air come in.' But you can't. They're bulletproof," Trump said, referring to complaints from First Lady Melania Trump about the sealed windows.
The president also made light of the situation, joking: "If something happens, really bad, just blame AI."
White House staff initially confirmed the video's authenticity
Trump's dismissal came hours after a White House official provided a different explanation to Time magazine. "It was a contractor who was doing regular maintenance while the President was gone," the official said in a statement, implying the video content was genuine.
Two sources familiar indicated that the video was real — and that it was related to construction and renovations going on in the room, according to CNN's reporting.
Expert analysis contradicts AI claims
Digital forensics expert Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and chief science officer at deepfake detection firm GetReal, conducted a technical analysis of the video and found no evidence of artificial generation.
"We do not detect any digital watermarks that are sometimes inserted at the point of AI-generation. The shadows in the scene, including the shadow cast by the tossed bag, are all physically consistent," Farid said in a statement. "The motion of the waving flags has none of the tell-tale signs that you often see in AI-generated videos. The overall structure of the White House appears to be consistent, including the flying of the American and POW/MIA flag."
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