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Donald Trump, the world’s most famous weirdo, has made plenty of absurd claims over the years. But the 78-year-old’s latest social media rant might be his weirdest yet. Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday to claim that Kamala Harris faked the huge crowds at her August 7 rally in Detroit, Michigan. In fact, Trump says photos of the crowds were made with artificial intelligence technology and he has the absolutely insane screenshots to prove it.
“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport?” Trump wrote on Sunday. “There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST! She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane.”
Trump continued by insisting that all of this supposed fakery was going to lead to cheating in the vote count during November’s presidential election.
“She’s a CHEATER,” Trump wrote. “She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches. This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING – And they’re even worse at the Ballot Box.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed the 2020 election was stolen, a claim that’s been proved false repeatedly in court. Then Trump went into what he really wanted to see with all of this conspiratorial talk. As Trump sees it, Harris shouldn’t even be able to run because she supposedly created fake images of her crowds.
“She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!” Trump wrote.
Trump continued with the conspiracy theory in several posts, oddly insisting Harris had created a large crowd with AI. But Trump didn’t invent the conspiracy theory himself, of course. Tweets about the theory were circulating online and garnering millions of views over recent days, and Trump even included a screenshot of the tweet below to make his case.
“BREAKING REPORT: Harris campaign BUSTED using FAKE crowd photo at campaign rally stop,” one tweet by X user Chuck Callesto falsely claimed on August 10.
BREAKING REPORT: Harris campaign BUSTED using FAKE crowd photo at campaign rally stop.. pic.twitter.com/HjTjN7vCdz
— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) August 10, 2024
It feels ridiculous to even point out that the Harris rally in Detroit was real and the crowd wasn’t created with AI. But it was real and it wasn’t made with AI. There are countless photos and videos from the event, all showing a massive crowd.
The photo below, for instance, was taken by photographer Demetrius Freeman for the Washington Post and distributed by Getty Images. The enthusiastic crowd is holding signs for Harris and her new running mate Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota. And there are no indications that anything about the image has been tampered with.
(Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images) Another photo taken by a different photographer from a different angle at the same event also proves the crowd in Detroit was large, as you can see below.
(Photo by Amy Lemus/NurPhoto via Getty Images) As another example, PBS Newshour has a livestream on YouTube that clearly shows the same enormous crowd visible in the photos that are circulating on sites like X and Truth Social.
Why has Trump started this absolutely crazy line of attack that Harris isn’t actually getting large crowds? For starters, Trump is obsessed with the size of his crowds and has used it as an indicator of a politician’s popularity. The fact that Harris is getting even larger crowds than his neo-fascist rallies is personally devastating to him.
But more importantly, Trump is scared about losing the presidential race now that Joe Biden dropped out. Trump doesn’t know how to attack Harris effectively and has been flailing in recent weeks. Poll after poll is coming out showing Harris with a slight lead in several battleground states where Biden was losing, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The latest polling from the New York Times over the weekend showed Harris winning by four points in each of those states. And the Democratic National Convention hasn’t even started yet, which traditionally gives the party a slight bump up in the polls given all the attention.
Trump plans to host an audio discussion on X with Elon Musk Monday night at 8 p.m. ET. And it’s bound to be one of the most unhinged experiences on the platform in some time. Given the fact that this nonsense “AI Harris crowd” conspiracy theory started on X, it will certainly be interesting to see if Trump brings up the idea that Harris is using computers to fake her crowd.
Ironically, Trump is the guy who sometimes uses AI on social media. Remember the time Trump shared an AI photo of himself kneeling down and praying? As the saying goes, every accusation from these guys is a confession.
