[Peritract]

Two things, I think:

1. "Defends" suggests some level of explanation and justification; the White House did not present any here.

2. "AI image showing arrested woman" could mean a fully-generated image of a woman, rather than editing an image of an existing person under law enforcement control to disguise the actual facts. The first one would be bizarre, the second one is much more problematic.

[Larrikin]

There is no meaningful difference between a 100% percent fabricated image and a some slightly smaller percentage of a digitally manipulated image when presented from the government as fact. There's no need to split hairs.

[Peritract]

It's the difference between drawing a cartoon and editing a photograph; the second one is a definite attempt to misrepresent matters of fact, the first could be argued to be illustrative only.