No, That Trump Video Isn’t Green-Screened


On Thursday, President Donald Trump tweeted a video of himself in front of the White House, talking about a variety of topics from the military to how the experimental antibody cocktail he received is a cure for COVID-19. The video appears to have been shot in front of the White House, but it also looks unnatural in a way that inspired some to claim it was filmed in front of a green screen.
But that’s not the case. The video is real and Trump is indeed standing outside on his own.
Green screen truthers pointed to the way that the trees behind him moved as evidence of some sort of Weekend at Bernie’s shenanigans. Instead of smooth, natural movement, the leaves of the trees appear to briefly stop on occasion as though they were part of a video loop. Suspicious!
But video experts told BuzzFeed News that while the trees behind Trump might appear to be part of a video loop, they probably aren’t.
“This is a product of video compression,” said Logan Williams, a data scientist with investigative outlet Bellingcat, referring to techniques used to make video file sizes smaller and more easily uploaded to platforms like Twitter.
Hany Farid, a professor of digital forensics, image analysis, and human perception at UC Berkeley, agreed, telling BuzzFeed News the video does appear to include compression artifacts.
“Most compression standards employ ‘predicted’ frames that use the content and motion from previous frames to encode the data on subsequent frames,” Farid explained. “This saves quite a bit of file/transfer size because not all of the data has to be encoded. At the same time, these predicted frames tend to be of lower quality because the prediction is not perfect. As such, most compression standards interlace the predicted frames with higher-quality non-predicted frames. This creates occasional perceptual ‘skips’ as frames of varying quality are displayed.”
This is why the trees behind Trump might appear to some to be part of a video loop. Farid and Williams both noted that the crisp shadows in the video appear to be consistent with the movement of the sun.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for the White House told BuzzFeed News that the video was indeed filmed on the South Lawn of the White House.
Welcome to October 2020, where even the simplest of things — trees blowing in the wind, a hiccup, a walk to a helicopter — raise questions.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump tweeted a video of himself in front of the White House, talking about a variety of topics from the military to how the experimental antibody cocktail he received is a cure for COVID-19. The video appears to have been shot in front of the White…
Recent Posts
Archives
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- September 2018
- October 2017
- December 2011
- August 2010