Donald Trump Cites AI Fakes To Falsely Claim Taylor Swift’s Endorsement
Written by djfrosty on August 19, 2024
Source: Tierney L. Cross / Getty
Donald Trump falsely claimed that Taylor Swift endorsed his presidential campaign online, sharing AI-generated images in the process.
On Sunday (Aug. 18), Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump shared a post on his Truth Social network that he cited as an endorsement from Taylor Swift. The post contained four screenshots of young women wearing “Swifties for Trump” t-shirts in different styles, which was taken from a post on X, formerly Twitter. Another image showed Swift dressed up like the character of Uncle Sam with the text, “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump” emblazoned on it. “I accept!!” Trump wrote in the caption of his post. The pop superstar has not publicly endorsed any support for Trump, and it’s since been discovered that all of the images save for one were generated by artificial intelligence.
According to a report from WIRED magazine, the lone image is of a Trump supporter by the name of Jenna Piwowarczyk, who created the “Swifties For Trump” t-shirt, which she wore to his campaign rally in Racine, Wisconsin, in June. Piwowarczyk is selling other copies of the shirt on Etsy. The other images were traced back to Amuse, a conservative news account on X, formerly Twitter. The group cited the cancellation of Swift’s concert dates in Vienna, Austria, due to a thwarted terror attack attempt in their post. The post is labeled as satire.
Swift, who is currently performing at London’s Wembley Stadium during her Eras Tour run, hasn’t commented on the false postings. Stephen Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, said in an email that “Swifties for Trump is a massive movement that grows bigger every single day.” Swift publicly endorsed President Joe Biden in 2020, and blasted Trump after his “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” comment after George Floyd’s murder, condemning his “nerve to feign moral superiority” after “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency.”
This isn’t the first time that Trump has willingly shared AI-generated imagery online in his campaign against Harris. He also shared one image featuring Vice President Harris dressed in red, presumably speaking to a crowd of Maoists at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, but with the old Soviet Union flag bearing the hammer and sickle hanging up.