Trump’s AI claims on Kamala Harris’ rally crowds debunked by experts

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is falsely claiming that an image of thousands of people waiting at Detroit’s airport for a campaign rally by Democrat Kamala Harris was fabricated with AI

Vice President Kamala Harris, pictured above, speaks at a campaign event [File] | Photo Credit: AP

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been spreading false claims that an image of thousands of people waiting at Detroit's airport as Democrat Kamala Harris arrived for a campaign rally was fabricated with the help of artificial intelligence.

Reporters, photographers and video journalists representing The Associated Press and other news organisations who either traveled with Vice President Harris or were on the airport tarmac documented the crowd size last Wednesday as she arrived on Air Force Two. Harris' campaign also denied the photo in question was manipulated and posted about it on social media.

Fifteen thousand people attended the Detroit airport rally, Harris' campaign said. Harris and Walz spoke from inside a hangar where people were packed in. The crowd also spilled out onto the tarmac. The Wayne County Airport Authority, which oversees the airport, referred questions about the size of the crowd to Harris' campaign.

Thousands of people have been showing up at her campaign rallies.

By the Harris campaign’s count, 12,000 people turned out for rallies in Philadelphia and Eau Claire, Wisconsin, last week, followed by 15,000 in Glendale, Arizona. In Las Vegas on Saturday, more than 12,000 people were inside a university arena when law enforcement halted admission because people were getting ill waiting outside in the extreme 109-degree heat. About 4,000 people were waiting in line when the doors were closed.

An Associated Press reporter who covered the Harris events in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, witnessed the throngs of people in attendance.

Trump pushed his false claims in back-to-back posts on his social media site on Sunday.

“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!.” he wrote. He included a post from another individual who made similar allegations about photo manipulation.

A minute later Trump posted, “Look, we caught her with a fake ‘crowd.’ There was nobody there!" He included a photo of the crowd that was partly shaded and partly exposed to the sun.

Harris' campaign confirmed on Monday that the photo being questioned was taken by a staff member and was not in any way modified using AI.

Hany Farid, a University of California, Berkeley, professor who focuses on digital forensics and misinformation, analysed the photo using two models trained to detect patterns of generative AI and found no evidence of manipulation. The models were developed by GetReal Labs, a company Farid co-founded.

Farid, responding Monday in an email, said he compared several versions of the photo and the only alteration he detected was some simple change to brightness or contrast, and perhaps sharpening. He said many other images and videos from the event last Wednesday show the same basic scene.

Trump started pushing false theories about the Harris campaign photo a few days after he held a news conference at his Florida estate on Thursday and was asked about the crowds at his Democratic rival's rallies. Trump said no one draws crowds as big as he does.

“I’ve spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me," Trump claimed at the news conference, his first since Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee.

He went on to falsely compare the crowd at his speech in front of the White House on January 6, 2021, to the crowd at Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial.

But King drew far more people. Approximately 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King gave his speech, according to the National Park Service. The Associated Press reported in 2021 that there were at least 10,000 people at Trump’s address.

Some of Trump’s top advisers and supporters have been urging the former president to focus his criticisms on Harris’ policies and talk more about the border and the economy.

“Stop questioning the size of her crowds,” was the advice former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., offered during a Fox News appearance on Monday.

The Harris campaign needled Trump on a variety of issues in an email Monday titled “9 Days Since Trump's Last Swing State Event.” The note included a bullet point that said, “he's very mad about crowd sizes, claiming it's all fake and AI-generated. (Maybe if he campaigned he'd get crowds too?)”