Trump Falsely Claims Harris Rally Crowd Was Fabricated

Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that a crowd gathered to see Vice President Kamala Harris in Michigan last week “didn’t exist” and that a photo showing the crowd was created using artificial intelligence.

The photo, which shows a large crowd at a rally in Detroit for the Democratic presidential candidate, was posted by a staff member from Harris’s campaign. Trump, who is running against Harris in the upcoming November election, said on his social media platform Truth Social that the image was fake and that “nobody” was actually there.

However, this claim has been proven false by many sources. Numerous photos and videos taken by people at the rally, as well as TV news teams and professional photographers, clearly show a large crowd. BBC presenter Sumi Somaskanda, who was at the event, said the crowd was “packed” and stretched out onto the airfield.

Photos from Getty Images and videos from media outlets like NBC News and PBS also confirm that a large audience was present. Local news outlet MLive estimated that about 15,000 people attended the rally at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

The Harris campaign confirmed that the photo is real and was taken on August 7. They said the photo has not been altered by AI or any other means and provided several other images taken at the same spot, all showing the same crowd.

The campaign also addressed online rumors that the photo was edited, such as the claim that the reflection on the side of the plane didn’t show the crowd and that the plane’s tail didn’t have an identification number. These claims have been disproven, with experts like Professor Hany Farid from UC Berkeley confirming that there is no evidence the photo was created by AI or digitally altered.