Donald Trump's new line of attack against Kamala Harris is about a subject he likes to fight about—crowd sizes. In a series of Truth Social posts, Trump accused the Harris campaign of doctoring images with artificial intelligence, but media outlets and attendees refute that notion, and the Harris campaign is mocking him over the unsubstantiated claim.
- Trump: "Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? 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!" Trump wrote of a Harris appearance in Detroit, reposting another user's claims. He added that the vice president's team was doing the same with rally photos, adding that "she should be disqualified" because it amounted to election interference.
- Refuting: The claim regarding the airport is out of Detroit, where the local MLive outlet estimated the Harris crowd at a hangar to be 15,000 and posted photos of the event. The New York Times writes that Harris' crowds, including at the airport, "were witnessed by thousands of people and news outlets, including The New York Times, and the number of attendees claimed by her campaign is in line with what was visible on the ground."
- Refuting, II: "There were in fact thousands of people gathered when the plane arrived at the airport, and there is no evidence that news organizations altered photos using artificial intelligence," per the Washington Post. A digital forensics expert at UC Berkeley examined photos and came to the same conclusion in a LinkedIn post. A local lawmaker posted her own photos from the Detroit event in response to the former president.
- Harris-Walz: "This is an actual photo of a 15,000-person crowd for Harris-Walz in Michigan," the campaign wrote, using the same image Trump claims was doctored. "Trump has still not campaigned in a swing state in over a week... Low energy?" Running mate Tim Walz told a crowd in Phoenix estimated to be 15,000: "It's not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything," per the Times. And Democratic strategist David Plouffe wrote: "These are not conspiratorial rantings from the deepest recesses of the internet. The author could have the nuclear codes and be responsible for decisions that will affect us all for decades."
- Strategy? The Hill calls attention to Trump's assertion that Harris be disqualified from the race, noting that some Democrats fear "he could be trying to lay the groundwork to contest a hypothetical electoral defeat as he did in 2020." Trump also has described Harris replacing President Biden on the ticket as a "coup."
(In last week's news conference, Trump said his speech on Jan. 6, 2021,
had a bigger crowd than MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech.)
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