Fact Check: Donald Trump Has Not Replaced Lincoln Portrait In Oval Office, Viral Image Is Edited
A digitally altered Wall Street Journal photo falsely claims that President Donald Trump replaced Abraham Lincoln's portrait with that of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson in the Oval Office.
The Verdict [Fake]
A Wall Street Journal photograph is digitally altered to superimpose a Jewish leader’s face onto Lincoln’s portrait.
What’s being claimed?
Social media users have circulated an image from the Oval Office, claiming that U.S. President Donald Trump has replaced Abraham Lincoln's portrait with that of Jewish leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
Schneerson, also known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, was the seventh leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a Jewish movement founded in 18th-century Russia.
The viral image shows Schneerson's portrait on the wall accompanied by the U.S. presidential flag, the American flag, the U.S. Space Force flag, and Lincoln's sculpture on the table.
An X user shared the image with the caption, “BREAKING: Donald Trump has replaced the Abraham Lincoln portrait, painted by Edward Dalton Marchant in 1863, with a portrait of the Chabad Lubavitch Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. THIS IS WHAT I VOTED FOR!” At the time of writing this story, the post had garnered over 2,100 likes and 460 reposts.
Archived versions of similar posts can be found here and here.
However, we found that the image is digitally altered to superimpose Schneerson's face onto Lincoln's portrait in the Oval Office.
What did we find?
A reverse image search led us to the original image published by the Wall Street Journal on its Instagram account. The image, posted on January 21, 2025 (archived here), is attributed to WSJ photographer Shuran Huang and clearly shows Lincoln's portrait in the office. It was also featured in a WSJ report dated January 20, 2025, that discussed the office's redecoration after Trump's inauguration day.
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Upon comparing the viral image with the WSJ photograph, we found a slight overlap of Schneerson's portrait onto the brown frame on the left side and a noticeable gap between the portrait and the frame on the right, both of which are signs of manipulation and superimposition of an image over another.
Additionally, on March 10, 2025, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino shared recent footage of the Oval Office (archived here) on his X account. At the 0:14-second mark, Lincoln’s portrait can be seen above George Washington’s portrait in the same location depicted in the viral image. This confirms that Lincoln’s portrait remains in the Oval Office and has not been replaced with that of Schneerson.
BEHIND THE SCENES! President Trump added additional portraits to the Oval Office here at The People’s House. Here’s the latest as of this morning, enjoy🇺🇸🦅 pic.twitter.com/m5KPkQ40FZ
— Dan Scavino (@Scavino47) March 10, 2025
The verdict
U.S. President Donald Trump has not replaced Abraham Lincoln's portrait in the Oval Office with that of Jewish leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. The viral image is digitally altered.
[This story was originally published by Logically Facts, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline and excerpt, this story has not been edited by ABP Live staff.]
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