From Snopes
Vance image in GOP post celebrating his birthday not doctored to make him look slimmer
By Cindy Shan
On Aug. 2, 2025, U.S. Vice President JD Vance celebrated his 41st birthday. To commemorate the occasion, the Republican Party’s official X account, @GOP, posted a graphic (archived) featuring Vance smiling and waving alongside a message that read: “Happy Birthday Vice President JD Vance.”
In response, some social media users claimed the image had been doctored to make Vance appear slimmer than he actually is.
For example, one X user posted a side-by-side comparison of the photo in the GOP post and another similar picture they claimed was the original. The user wrote (archived): “OMG. They heavily photoshopped JD Vance to make him look like he weighs 160 lbs. What a joke. Nothing is real with this administration. NOTHING. Original on the left. Doctored on the right. So embarrassing...”
Hany Farid, a University of California, Berkeley, professor and expert in image analysis and digital forensics, also reviewed the images and explained why Vance may have appeared slimmer in the GOP X post's graphic:
“I don’t think this image was manipulated to make Vance thinner. If you overlay the two images, you will see that Vance’s body in both images is very similar. Instead I think what is happening is that in the original part of his body is set against a blue background which creates a bit of an optical illusion making him look bigger — in the other image, he is squarely behind the flag which provides more of a contrast. This is consistent with the background separation described below which may have shaved off a few pixels.”
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley.
