Some social media users seized on footage from the April 25 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to investigate the shooting that disrupted the event, but using artificial intelligence to review the video caused more confusion, not less.
An unedited video from the dinner first appeared online in the hours after the shooting when President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social low-quality security footage of a person running through a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton hotel as Secret Service agents rushed behind him with guns drawn.
Cole Tomas Allen has been charged in the incident with attempted assassination.
Others used AI to enhance the video Trump shared, and some reshared the edited version without context.
An April 26 Facebook post shared the edited footage with a caption that said, “Unedited raw security footage of the WHCD front entrance to the lobby where the suspect ran through.”
Conservative commentator Benny Johnson, also shared the edited clip in an April 26 X post, garnering more than 2 million views. Later that day, Johnson noted in a follow-up post that the video had been enhanced with AI.
Other X users shared the footage without specifying it had been enhanced using AI.
The edited version, first shared by X user “Seth Weathers,” was not accurate. Weathers specified that he enhanced the security footage with AI since the original quality was low. Weathers also added that the AI “made up some things to fill in the gaps.”
(Screenshot of the AI-enhanced footage highlighting irregularities with red circles)
Here are some irregularities we found while analyzing the AI-enhanced footage that are not in the original video:
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Two agents are kneeling down in front of each other while the suspect runs in the opposite direction.
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The agent standing in the middle of the frame first appears wearing a cap but it later morphs into what looks like a beanie.
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When the suspect enters the footage, his body has a big white box on top of it that disappears as he passes the security checkpoint.
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The agents’ uniforms have random letters that do not reflect a Secret Service division officer’s uniform.
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There’s a blurry black blob in the middle of the checkpoint that sometimes looks like part of the furniture, and other times looks like an agent kneeling down in a tux.
We rate claims this video is “unedited raw security footage” from the dinner False.
Related: Fact-checking falsehoods after shooting in hotel hosting correspondents’ dinner Trump attended
Related: Column: Why a correspondents’ dinner at a White House ballroom could endanger press freedom
