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. However, reporters, photographers, and video journalists documented the crowd size as Harris arrived on Air Force Two. The Wayne County Airport Authority referred questions about the crowd size to Harris' campaign, which confirmed that 15,000 people attended the Detroit airport rally.
The Harris campaign reported large turnouts at other rallies as well, with 12,000 people in Philadelphia and Eau Claire, Wisconsin, followed by 15,000 in Glendale, Arizona. In Las Vegas, over 12,000 people were inside a university arena when law enforcement halted admission due to extreme heat.
An Associated Press reporter who covered Harris events in multiple states witnessed the large crowds in attendance. Despite this, Trump continued to push false claims on social media, alleging that the photo was manipulated using AI.
However, a digital forensics expert found no evidence of manipulation in the photo. Trump's false theories emerged after he compared crowd sizes at his and Harris' rallies, falsely claiming that he draws larger crowds. Some of his advisers have urged him to focus on policy issues rather than crowd sizes.
The Harris campaign responded to Trump's claims, highlighting the lack of recent swing state events by the former president. They mocked Trump's fixation on crowd sizes, suggesting that more campaigning might lead to larger crowds for him as well.
