Former President Donald Trump erroneously claimed via social media Sunday that a crowd at a Michigan rally for VP Kamala Harris last week “DIDN’T EXIST,” “nobody was there” and that photographs of the occasion were created by artificial intelligence.
Soon after President Joe Biden’s declaration that he would step down as the Democratic candidate, conspiracy theorists and far-right influencers have advanced various misrepresentations targeted at the Harris campaign.
“Nobody at the Plane”
However, Trump’s repeated posts on his Truth Social platform making false claims about the size of the crowd and photos are a significant escalation.
The Republican nominee stated: “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!”
No Proof
Trump went on to state: “She’s a CHEATER. 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.”
There were as a matter of fact thousands of individuals accumulated when the plane showed up at the terminal, and there is no proof that news outlets modified photographs with the help of AI.
2020 Presidential Election
There is additionally no proof that Harris, or Democrats more broadly have cheated to win elections, in spite of Trump’s rehashed false claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged.”
David Plouffe, a senior advisor for Kamala Harris for President, voiced his concern on X, the social media site previously known as Twitter, about Trump’s remarks.
Live-Streamed Event
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.”
The event that took place last week at a Detroit airport hangar was live-streamed and was attended by many media outlets.
“Throngs of People Outside”
Many of the people who were at the rally posted pictures and videos of the packed venue. Local media source MLive estimated that 15,000 individuals filled the hangar and that participants poured out onto the tarmac.
Mallory McMorrow, a state legislator from Michigan, posted pictures of the event, noting that “you can just see the throngs of people outside.”
Harris Campaign Response
The Harris campaign responded to Trump’s remarks on Sunday by writing, “This is an actual photo of a 15,000-person crowd for Harris-Walz in Michigan” on the social media site X.
Trump, the GOP candidate for president, has for years been fixated on crowd size as a measurement of success. He has over and over taken to social media to boast about the size of the crowd he could draw and last week stated at a news gathering that “nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me.”
Trump’s Crowd Comparisons
Trump has recently claimed that the crowd for a speech he gave in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, the day rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, obscured the numbers who went to Martin Luther King Jr’s. “I Have a Dream” speech regardless of visual proof that it didn’t.
Trump has consistently been tested by fact-checkers and opposition groups for raising discredited allegations, rehashing misinformation, or taking hold of conspiracies, particularly when under political threat.
Previous False Claims
In 2016, he erroneously stated that President Barack Obama was not born in the US and didn’t go to Columbia University, that Trump’s expenses were audited on the grounds that he is Christian, that vaccines are associated with autism, and that climate change is a scam.
In 2020, he would not advocate for wearing masks during the Covid pandemic and advanced unwarranted claims about the purported risks.
“30,573 Untruths”
“30,573 untruths during his presidency — averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day,” the Washington Post Fact Checker team noted in January 2021.
Trump’s emphasis on crowd size additionally has become something that the Harris campaign has used to make fun of Trump about — while simultaneously boasting about their own crowds.
Tim Walz Comments
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz at a Friday night rally with Harris, taking a look at an Arizona audience that Democrats estimated at more than 15,000, joked, “It’s not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything.”
On Sunday evening, the Harris lobby put out an announcement depicting a crowd of “more than 12,000 Nevadans” at a rally over the weekend — “one of the largest political rallies in modern Nevada political history” — and afterward listed past crowds as including “14,000+ in Philadelphia, 12,000+ in Eau Claire, and 15,000+ in both Detroit and Arizona.”
“Undeniable” Energy
What’s more, at a fundraising event in San Francisco on Sunday, Harris seemed to indirectly address Trump’s social media accusations.
Harris stated, “The press and our opponents like to focus on our crowd size, and yes, the crowds are large,” adding that the national energy is “undeniable.”
She added that the fact that thousands of attendees are volunteering their time is even better.
