Image appearing to show Trump with shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks is AI-generated

On July 13, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump while he was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The Secret Service killed Crooks at the scene. 

No officials have confirmed a direct connection between Crooks and Trump, but an image recently posted to TikTok and Reddit appears to show the two together sitting around a table with an FBI agent. The post suggests Trump and Crooks colluded with the FBI to orchestrate the assassination attempt.

“They planned it with the FBI,” the text on top of the image says. 

VERIFY viewer Todd texted us to ask if the image is real.

THE QUESTION

Is the image appearing to show Donald Trump with Thomas Matthew Crooks real?

THE SOURCES

THE ANSWER

No, the image appearing to show Donald Trump with Thomas Matthew Crooks isn’t real. It’s AI-generated.

WHAT WE FOUND

The image appearing to show Donald Trump with Thomas Matthew Crooks sitting at a table with an FBI agent isn’t real. It’s made with generative artificial intelligence software. 

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence technology that can produce new content, including images, videos, audio and text based on a prompt.

VERIFY analyzed the image and determined there are a number of visual cues that it was generated with AI.

AI creation tools can struggle with details. Often, a person seen in an AI-generated image or video has misshapen or distorted features. Numbers, letters, textures and background details are often also distorted or over-stylized in AI content. 

In this image, the hands are distorted. The left hand on the person purporting to be Crooks is missing. Trump’s face is also misshapen and it looks as though he is missing an eye.

The phone on the table in the background is missing a handset and the people that appear in the photos on the wall are blob-like. The border on the table doesn’t match between the left side of Trump to his right. The water glass on the table is also faded, as if half of the glass is missing. These inconsistencies are all clues that this was made with AI. 

In addition to the visual tells, VERIFY conducted a reverse image search and found no other reputable sources sharing the same photo online. There are also no credible sources from law enforcement or news outlets confirming there was a personal connection between Trump and Crooks, or that they’ve ever even met. 

Additionally, the person purporting to be Crooks doesn’t look like any photos of Crooks that have been published. That is another red flag that this image was created with artificial intelligence. 

We also did additional research into the possible source of the image to confirm it’s not real.

VERIFY traced this image back to a YouTube account that has repeatedly posted misinformation, conspiracy theories and videos that contain AI-generated content and should not be considered a trusted source of information.

The image originally appeared on a video called “How Trump’s Shooter Really Planned the Attack;” the title of the video can be seen in the Reddit post with the image. The video is now private on YouTube and VERIFY found no archives of the public version.