Former President Donald Trump on Sunday falsely accused his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, of using artificial intelligence to create the appearance of a larger crowd at a campaign rally on Wednesday near Detroit, Michigan.
“Did anyone notice Kamala CHEATING at the airport? There was no one on the plane, and she ‘AI’d it, showing a huge ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DON’T EXIST! She was reported by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake photo of the crowd, but no one was there, which was later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror-like finish of the vice presidential plane,” the former reality TV star posted on his phone. social media platform Truth Social on Sunday.
“She’s a CHEATER. There was NO ONE waiting, and the ‘crowd’ seemed like 10,000 people! The same thing happens with her fake ‘crowds’ during her speeches. This is how Democrats win elections, by cheating.”
“Look, we caught her with a fake ‘mob.’ There was no one there!” Trump added this in a subsequent post.
Shortly after, he also posted: “EVERYTHING ABOUT KAMALA IS FAKE!”
The twice-impeached Republican presidential candidate, who is seemingly obsessed with the concept of audience sizeechoed conservative commentator Chuck Callesto – who has 37.5k followers on Truth social and 760.5k followers on X, formerly Twitter. Callesto previously made false claims online that have gone viral.
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The campaign for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, responded in a message on X claiming the photo of the rally was real.
“1) This is a real photo of a crowd of 15,000 people in front of Harris-Walz in Michigan,” the post said, using a number that matched a Thursday report from local news channel MLive. “2) Trump still hasn’t campaigned in a swing state in over a week…Low energy?”
The campaign also posted a video on Truth Social showing the full size of the crowd. The message read: “Warning: The contents of this video may upset @realDonaldTrump.”
Harris previously fell victim to the use of artificial intelligence early in her campaign for president, when someone replaced the audio of her campaign video with a similar-sounding voice that expressed something very different from what was said in the real video.
“I, Kamala Harris, am your Democratic nominee for president because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility during the debate,” the voice said over the video.
Trump himself is at the mercy of disinformation spread by AI-generated images. In March 2023, images taken using a tool called Midjourney v5 surfaced online depicting a dramatic scene of a struggle between numerous New York law enforcement officers and Trump. (Trump, who is now a convicted felon, was not arrested until August 2023.)
In a June interview with YouTuber and pro wrestler Logan Paul, by contrast, the former president took pride in his own use of AI to deliver a speech “so beautifully.” (It is unclear if and when the speech was used).