Trump falsely claims Harris campaign used AI to fake crowd in Detroit

Former President Donald Trump on Sunday falsely claimed Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign lied about a crowd attending her Aug. 7 rally in Detroit, Michigan. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said a photo of the crowd was created using artificial intelligence and that the crowd in fact “didn’t exist.” 

However, numerous videos from the event at Detroit Wayne County Metropolitan Airport show a large crowd attended, and the videos show a crowd similar to the one seen in the photo. Local reporters for the news site MLive estimated 15,000 people were present as Air Force Two arrived.

The photo Trump questioned was posted to X by a Michigan campaign staffer for Harris, who said he received it from a colleague.  A Harris campaign official told CBS News that the photo was taken by a campaign staff member, and the official sent what they said was the original photo along with other visuals captured by the staffer. 

Metadata from the photo analyzed by CBS News showed it was taken on an Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max on Aug. 7 at 6:28 p.m. ET. A side-by-side comparison of the original photo and the version that appeared on social media showed that the social media version had been brightened and cropped. There were no signs of AI manipulation. 

 Similar photos were also taken by news agencies covering the event, including Reuters and Getty Images, like the one seen below.

Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in deepfake detection, said in a post on LinkedIn that he received multiple requests to analyze the image after it went viral online. 

Farid said he found no evidence that the image was AI-generated or digitally altered. Farid said the text on the signs and plane show none of the usual signs of generative AI. 

The Harris campaign responded to Trump’s accusations on Truth Social, replying to one of his posts by sharing a video from the event that showed Air Force Two arriving. “In case you forgot @realdonaldtrump: This is what a rally in a swing state looks like.” 

But Trump supporters on social media continued to share debunked images and spread false claims.

One of those bogus images on Telegram and X showed AI-generated faces with a caption claiming they were “fake Harris supporters” allegedly circulated by the Harris campaign. However, CBS News found this photo was not circulated by the Harris campaign. An X user who runs a parody account claimed to be behind the image and said it was generated using AI. 

A screenshot of what looked like a Craigslist advertisement for paid actors to attend a political event at the Phoenix, Arizona Convention Center, also circulated over the weekend. But the ad was fake, and versions of it have been debunked since at least 2017 by AZ Central, Snopes, and Reuters. 

Trump has boasted about crowds at his rallies in recent days. At a news conference on Thursday, the Republican presidential nominee said he thought that more people attended his speech in front of the Ellipse near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, than Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. 

Trump acknowledged official estimates showed King had a larger crowd size. According to the National Park Service, approximately 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, where King spoke. Approximately 53,000 people attended Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021, according to the House Select Committee that investigated the assault on the Capitol that took place later that day.

“Nobody has spoken to crowds bigger than me,” Trump said.