While I couldn’t care less about the latest news involving the British royal family, the release of a digitally altered photo shared to the royal family’s social media accounts has bombarded my social media and news feeds.
Countless articles have talked about how scandalous the use of the altered photo was. I don’t know what was altered in the photo, and frankly, I don’t care. But you would think that Princess Kate mishandled classified documents or something the way the media are covering this scandal.
This brings us to my point. Ed O’Keefe of CBS News asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre a question that referred to the scandal: “Does the White House ever digitally alter photos of the President, Vice President, First Lady, or Second Gentleman before they’re released?”
The White House press corps and even Jean-Pierre laughed at the question.
“Digitally altered? Not that I know of,” she replied. “I would say no. Why would we digitally alter photos? Are you talking about — are you — are you comparing us to the — what’s going on in the UK?”
Related: Things Just Got a Lot Worse for Joe Biden
“Why does the monarch have to do anything with us?” she asked. “No, that is not something that we do here.”
CBS’s @EdOKeefe drew some laughs from fellow reporters and KJP for asking if the Biden White House has ever released digitally-altered photos (like the one the British Royals sent out of Princess Kate).
KJP insists, “no, that is not something that we do here.”
That is FALSE as,… pic.twitter.com/IgyLDgIUoj
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 12, 2024
It turns out that the White House does this. Back in September, Biden’s official X/Twitter account shared a digitally altered photo of Joe Biden side by side with a more unflattering photo of Donald Trump.
The last guy didn’t build a damn thing.
We are. pic.twitter.com/bQTS96YLuW
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 6, 2023
At the time, Townhall contributor John Hasson showed a side-by-side comparison between the original photo of Biden and the altered photo, which proved that someone digitally smoothed out and brightened Biden’s skin to appear younger.
Biden’s allies have also shared digitally altered photos of Joe Biden as well. Former Democratic Party Chairman and current Democrat strategist Chris D. Jackson posted an altered photo of Biden in December 2022. It was so poorly done that Biden’s face looked cartoonish.
— Margolis & Cox (@MargolisandCox) December 19, 2022
Jackson continued to post altered photos of Biden after that to attempt to prove that Biden is more youthful and vibrant than Trump
Clearly, using digitally altered photos is something the White House, Biden’s campaign, and Biden’s allies would do, because they have. They know that Biden’s age is an issue, so they’ve resorted to making him look younger in Photoshop.
It’s amusing how the use of a poorly digitally altered photo from the royal family has scandalized the media, yet Biden and his allies digitally altering photos to make him look younger never met the criteria of a scandal for them.