The following very startling story was posted today on the website of The New York Times:
The headline of the piece reads: "Trump Falsely Claims That the Crowds Seen at Harris Rallies Are Fake."
This is the article's sub-headline: "The former president, in a series of social media posts, said that Vice President Kamala Harris had used A.I. technology to create images of fake crowds at her events."
Reporter Shane Goldmacher writes:
Former President Donald J. Trump has taken his new obsession with the large crowds that Vice President Kamala Harris is drawing at her rallies to new heights, falsely declaring in a series of social media posts on Sunday that she had used artificial intelligence to create images and videos of fake crowds.
The crowds at Ms. Harris’s events, including one in Detroit outside an airplane hangar, were witnessed by thousands of people and news outlets, including The New York Times, and the number of attendees claimed by her campaign is in line with what was visible on the ground. Mr. Trump falsely wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, that “there was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it.”
A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Goldmacher writes:
In his posts on Sunday, Mr. Trump drew parallels between his false claims of fake crowds and his false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
“She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people!” Mr. Trump wrote. “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.”
Ms. Harris’s campaign went on Mr. Trump’s social network to mock his wild accusations, replying to one of his posts by sharing a video of Air Force Two arriving in Detroit to an enormous crowd and her exiting the plane with Mr. Walz.
Tom Nichols, a very fine staff writer at The Atlantic, wrote the following for the magazine's website, after Mr. Trump's recent press conference:
"The Republican nominee, the man who could return to office and regain the sole authority to use American nuclear weapons, is a serial liar and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy."
Mr. Nichols wrote: "Donald Trump is not well. He is not stable. There’s something deeply wrong with him."
I am reminded of an August 15, 2015 interview Times columnist Maureen Dowd conducted with Mr. Trump; this was the year before he was elected president. She asked him about the issue of "insecurity."
Ms. Dowd wrote:
I tell Trump that he has transcended the level of narcissism common in a profession full of narcissists. He is, after all, wearing a red tie with a label by “a wonderful guy named Trump,” as he wryly puts it, with his Brioni suit. In the latest Time, Jeffrey Kluger, the author of “The Narcissist Next Door,” said “people at ease inside their skin just don’t behave the way Trump does.”
I ask if he was always like this, boasting that he had the best baby food and the best high chair?
“Honestly, I don’t think people change that much,” Trump said. “I’m a solid, stable person.” Knocking on the wooden restaurant wall, he added: “I am a man of great achievement. I win, Maureen, I always win. Knock on wood. I win. It’s what I do. I beat people. I win.”
No insecurities?
“I don’t know how you would define insecurity as it pertains to me,” he replies.
