Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign team mocked Donald Trump on Sunday with videos of the size of the crowd at her recent rally in Michigan after the former president said photos of the event were “fake.”
Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee in this year’s election, and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, appeared together on Wednesday before about 15,000 people at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in the key swing state.
In a series of Sunday posts on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, the Harris campaign shared videos of the roaring crowd in the airport hangar as the vice president stepped off the plane. The Harris campaign mocked the former president by captioning the video, “Warning: The content of this video may upset @realDonaldTrump.”
And in another post, the campaign team posted: “In case you forgot @realdonaldtrump, this is what a rally in a swing state looks like.”
Newsweek Trump’s campaign team asked for comment via email on Sunday.
In response to Harris’ crowd in Detroit, Republican presidential candidate Trump claimed on his Truth Social account on Sunday that the Harris campaign team had faked photos of the crowd at the rally.
“Did anyone notice that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was no one at the plane and she manipulated it using artificial intelligence to show a huge ‘crowd’ of so-called supporters BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST! She was reported by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd image but there was no one there, later confirmed by the reflection off the mirror-like surface of the Vice President’s plane. She is a CHEAT. She had NO ONE waiting and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people!” Trump wrote.
The former president added, “The same thing happens with her fake ‘crowds’ during her speeches. That’s how Democrats win elections, through FRAUD – and they’re even worse at the ballot box. She should be disqualified because creating a false image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that is cheating at EVERYTHING!”
JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP/Getty Images
In addition, a photo Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday read: “See, we caught them with a fake ‘crowd.’ There was no one there!”
This photo was analyzed by fact-checking organization Snopes, which used AI detection tools to conclude that it was “likely photographed by someone and not created using an AI generation tool.” However, it added that the image posted by Trump “may have been digitally altered.”
There is no evidence that the photos or videos of Wednesday’s crowd shared by Harris’ campaign team were faked or altered.
In response to Trump’s claims, a Harris campaign official wrote in an email to Newsweek a photo of the crowd from Wednesday and added: “I can confirm that this was taken by the Harris campaign and has not been altered in any way by AI.”
Kamala Harris Campaign Staff/Kamala Harris Campaign Staff
Meanwhile, the Harris team taunted Trump on Friday with a video of empty seats at his recent rally in Montana, sharing on X (formerly Twitter) a video of the roaring crowd as Harris took the stage in Arizona.
In a follow-up post, Harris’ campaign showed a video of Trump’s rally in Bozeman, Montana, on Friday with many empty seats. Attendees remained seated quietly, but that was to be expected as they waited for other speakers to speak before Trump took the stage hours later.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, said earlier Newsweek by email on Saturday morning: “The Kamala Campaign – Liars, Fraudsters and Cowards.”
This is part of a larger trend leading up to the 2024 election, with both campaigns comparing and targeting crowd sizes at each other’s campaign rallies.
At a recent rally in Georgia, Trump said Harris drew so many people at her rally in the swing state in late July because she had “entertainers.” Rappers Megan Thee Stallion and Quavo performed at Harris’ campaign rally in Atlanta.
Trump has boasted about the size of his rallies throughout the campaign and before, often relying on unproven evidence or conjecture, but he claims the media favored Harris when it came to the size of large rallies.
“When Kamala has 1,000 people at a rally, the press goes crazy talking about how ‘big’ she was – and they pay for their ‘crowd,'” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday. “When I have a rally and 100,000 people show up, the Fake News doesn’t talk about it. THEY REFUSE TO MENTION THE SIZE OF THE CROWD. The Fake News is the enemy of the people!”
Update 8/11/24, 5:17 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from a Harris campaign staffer.
