Brian Stelter: “When Donald Trump is at his most vulnerable, when he feels most threatened, he tells fans not to believe their own eyes and ears.”
“After the January 6 attack on the Capitol, he called the event a “love fest,” denying the video evidence of the violence. After the writer E. Jean Carroll accused him of sexual assault, he said he had ‘never met’ her, despite a photo showing them together.”
“And yesterday, after Kamala Harris finished a week of arena-size rallies, he claimed that images of her crowds were ‘fake’ and AI-generated. Specifically, Trump embraced a conspiracy theory—touted by pro-Trump social-media accounts known for peddling nonsense—that the Harris campaign had posted a fake crowd photo from her August 7 event in Romulus, Michigan…”
“The turnout at Harris events is entirely real, and political analysts suspect that the crowds she has attracted are making Trump jealous and nervous. But the AI lie is about more than Trump’s size anxiety—it portends a dark and desperate chapter in this already distressing presidential-election season.”
