Trump falsely claims that crowds seen at Harris rallies are fake

NEW YORK - Former US president Donald Trump has taken his new obsession with the large crowds that Vice-President Kamala Harris is drawing at her rallies to new heights, falsely declaring in a series of social media posts on Aug 11 that she had used artificial intelligence (AI) to create images and videos of fake crowds.

The crowds at Ms Harris’ events, including one in Detroit outside an airplane hangar, 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.

Trump falsely wrote on his social media site Truth Social that “there was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.d’ it”.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump has struggled to find his political footing in the weeks since President Joe Biden decided to step aside and Ms Harris replaced him atop the Democratic ticket.

Trump questioned her racial identity at a conference for black journalists, later attacked Mr Brian Kemp, the popular Republican Governor in the key swing state of Georgia, and has seen new polling that puts him behind Ms Harris in several key states.

The Harris campaign has begun to mock Trump for his frustration over her crowds, one of which, it said, topped 15,000 people at an event in the Phoenix area on Aug 9.

“It’s not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything,” Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, Ms Harris’ running mate, said to the crowd, receiving a loud cheer.

In his posts on Aug 11, Trump drew parallels between his false claims of fake crowds and his false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

“She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people!” Trump wrote.

“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. She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE.”

Ms Harris’ campaign went on Trump’s social network to mock his wild accusations, replying to one of his posts by sharing a video of Air Force Two arriving in Detroit to an enormous crowd and her exiting the plane with Mr Walz.

“In case you forgot @realdonaldtrump: This is what a rally in a swing state looks like,” her campaign wrote.

Trump did not hold any events in swing states last week. Instead, he held a rally in Montana, where there is a crucial Senate race, and a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.

He showed frustration with Ms Harris’ crowds at that event, too, and even boasted about the crowd at his rally in Washington on Jan 6, 2021, that preceded the riot at the Capitol, saying it was larger than the one drawn by Martin Luther King Jr. for his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.

“Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me,” Trump claimed. NYTIMES