Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign taunted 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 presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in this year’s upcoming election, and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, appeared together in the key swing state in front of an estimated 15,000 people at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Wednesday.
In a series of Sunday posts on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform, the Harris campaign shared videos of the roaring crowd at the airport hangar when the vice president stepped out of the airplane. The Harris campaign taunted the former president by captioning the video: “Warning: The content of this video may upset @realDonaldTrump.”
And in another post, the campaign posted, “In case you forgot @realdonaldtrump: This is what a rally in a swing state looks like.”
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s campaign via email for comment on Sunday.
In response to Harris’ crowd in Detroit, Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, took to his Truth Social account on Sunday to falsely claim the Harris campaign faked photos of the crowd at the rally.
“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! She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane. She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people!” Trump wrote.
The former president added: “Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches. This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING – And they’re even worse at the Ballot Box. She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”
In addition, a photo posted by Trump on Truth Social on Sunday was captioned, “Look, we caught her with a fake ‘crowd.’ There was nobody there!”
That photo was analyzed by the fact-checking organization Snopes who used AI-detection tools and determined it was “likely photographed by someone and not created using an AI-generation tool,” but added that the image posted by Trump is “possible it was digitally edited.”
There is no evidence to suggest the photos or videos of Wednesday’s crowd shared by the Harris campaign are fake or altered.
In response to Trump’s claims, a Harris campaign official in a statement emailed to Newsweek a photo of Wednesday’s crowd adding, “I can confirm that this was taken by Harris campaign staff and not modified by AI in any way.”
Meanwhile, the Harris campaign mocked Trump on Friday with a video of empty seats at his recent rally in Montana by sharing a video of the roaring crowd when Harris walked on stage in Arizona on X, formerly Twitter.
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 and quiet, but this is to be expected given that they were waiting for other speakers to give remarks before Trump went on stage hours later.
Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, previously told Newsweek via email on Saturday morning: “The Kamala campaign—liars, frauds, and cowards.”
This comes as part of a larger trend amid the 2024 election as both campaigns have continued to compare and take aim at each other’s campaign rally crowd sizes.
During a recent rally in Georgia, Trump suggested that Harris got a large crowd at her late July rally in the swing state because she had “entertainers.” Rappers Megan Thee Stallion and Quavo had appeared at Harris’ campaign event in Atlanta.
While Trump has boasted about the size of his rallies throughout the election season and before, often relying on unsubstantiated evidence or guesswork, he has claimed that the media has favored Harris when talking about big rally sizes.
“If Kamala has 1,000 people at a Rally, the Press goes ‘crazy,’ and talks about how ‘big’ it was – And she pays for her ‘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 CROWD SIZE. 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 official.
