Former President Donald Trump continued his obsession with crowd size on Sunday, claiming photos that showed a large crowd outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ Detroit rally last week were AI-generated. But one photographer who was in attendance confirmed to the Daily Beast that the images his camera captured were very real.
“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport?” Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday. “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! Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches.”
Trump then shared another photo of the Aug. 7 crowd from a distance and again claimed it was a “fake ‘crowd.’”
The former president’s sudden posts amplified a burgeoning right-wing conspiracy, which seemingly started on Saturday after far-right filmmaker and election denier Dinesh D’Souza posted a photo from the rally on his X account with areas of the plane’s body circled.
“Check the reflection in the plane,” he wrote. “Does this look like a real picture to you?”
Trump ran with this narrative despite numerous photos and videos from the rally that showed thousands of people awaiting the arrival of Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The press pool captured nearly every angle of the event, from scenes of Harris and Walz on the steps of Air Force Two to the two addressing the raucous crowd from the stage.
Getty Images photographer Andrew Harnik covered the rally on Wednesday and tells the Daily Beast the crowd was “significantly large enough” that it spilled into the tarmac. The campaign also set up large LED screens so that attendees could see and hear the speeches.
“It was a large crowd, and the pictures that I took that are on the Getty website speak to that,” Harnik says.
People attend a campaign event for Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on August 7, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan.
Andrew Harnik/Getty
Harnik explains that he used a zoom lens, a camera attachment commonly used by photographers that allows them to change the framing of a scene without moving from their spot. A high-end zoom lens allows a photographer to capture a subject from afar, though it can give photos a “flat” look and make the subject appear much closer than they are—in this case, a plane to a crowd.
“The plane is actually a pretty far distance from the crowd,” Harnik adds.
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“DETROIT, MICHIGAN – AUGUST 07: Air Force Two arrives with Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as they prepare to hold a campaign event on August 7, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan. Kamala Harris and her newly selected running mate Tim Walz are campaigning across the country this week. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)”
Andrew Harnik
The Getty Images photographer has covered politics for decades, including Trump’s past presidential campaigns, and says photographers simply capture what’s in front of them—without fear or favor: “We keep our own opinions to ourselves and just cover what we see in front of us.”
The efforts appeared to be part of Trump’s quest to define the vice president after she stepped up to the top of the ticket last month, energizing Democrats and prompting a surge in financial and political support. Fresh New York Times polls on Saturday showed Harris leading Trump in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, contributing to a reported rage-fest from Trump in private that’s begun to bleed into public view.
“EVERYTHING ABOUT KAMALA IS FAKE!” Trump wrote in another Truth Social post on Sunday.
The Trump and Harris campaigns did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment. Harris senior adviser David Plouffe posted that Trump’s falsehoods were “not conspiratorial rantings from the deepest recesses of the internet,” but instead one of someone who “could have the nuclear codes and be responsible for decisions that will affect us all for decades.”
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