Image of Trump watching South Korean presidential candidate is doctored

Published on May 14, 2025 at 05:04
3 min read
By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea

After South Korea's former acting president Han Duck-soo declared his intention to stand for the top job in early May 2025, a doctored image was repeatedly shared in social media posts claiming it showed US President Donald Trump "watching and supporting" the announcement. The image was created by splicing footage of Han's announcement onto a photo of Trump watching news channels on a TV at the White House in December 2020.

"Prime Minister Han Duck-soo is the only candidate who is respected by President Trump," reads the Korean-language caption of an image shared on Facebook on May 8, 2025.

"Trump personally even watched [Han's] presidential run announcement."

The image appears to show Trump looking at a TV screen showing Han launching his campaign for president (archived link).

Han has since dropped out of the race, allowing his conservative People Power Party to field a single candidate against liberal frontrunner Lee Jae-myung (archived link).

As impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol’s prime minister, Han had assumed the country’s interim leadership when Yoon was suspended from office following his short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024. He resigned as acting president on May 1 to run in the presidential election scheduled for June 3.

Screenshot of the misleading claim shared on Facebook, captured May 9

Identical claims were shared in multiple Facebook groups supporting Yoon and other conservative politicians.

"President Trump looks like he is carefully watching South Korea's election. He probably ordered that Lee Jae-myung be stopped by any means necessary," read a comment on one of the posts.

Another said: "[Han] is the candidate who President Trump is watching and supporting personally, so people should not speak negatively about him."

While Trump reportedly asked Han whether he would run for president, the image circulating online is a fabrication (archived link).

Old Trump photo

A combination of keyword and reverse image searches on Google led to a Washington Post photo showing Trump watching news coverage on a monitor at the White House on November 20, 2020 (archived link).

The photo is captioned: "President Trump watches television after speaking to reporters at the White House on Nov. 20."

Screenshot comparison between the doctored image shared on Facebook (left) and the photo published by the Washington Post (right)

The same photo was also used by the Seattle Times and is available on the Getty Images website (archived here and here).

A separate keyword search led to footage of Han announcing his presidential bid broadcast by YTN on May 1 (archived link).

The still used in the doctored image is shown at the 2:05 mark.

Screenshot from YTN’s broadcast used in the false posts

AFP has previously debunked similar images that were doctored to make them appear as if they showed Trump speaking with Yoon or watching news about his South Korean counterpart.

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