Supporters of Donald Trump created AI images showing the ex-president being embraced by black people, while the Republican demographic continues to struggle to get justice.
A shocking new report from BBC’s Panorama shows that one of the least prominent Trump supporters, Florida-based radio host Mark Kaye, admits to creating the fake image.
‘I’m not a photojournalist. I don’t take pictures of what’s actually happening. I’m a storyteller,” Kaye shared the BBC.
The network shared two of the AI-created images, one showed Trump smiling and with his arms around a group of black women. That photo was taken by Mark Kaye and his team, the BBC reports.
Another showed Trump in front of a house with a group of young black men. The photo was spread on social media and generated thousands of likes.
The story accompanying the image claims that Trump walked past a house in his motorcade and asked to go outside to meet the men. The BBC reports that the photo is fake.
“Many are coming on board, look at all the rap songs coming out of pro Trump, walking the streets as he drives his motorcade through their neighborhood. I have hope that we all, no matter what color, wake up and unite,” the creator wrote in the caption of the photo.
“At first glance it looks real, but on closer inspection everyone’s skin is a little too shiny and people’s hands are missing fingers – some telltale signs of AI-generated imagery,” reads part of the BBC report.
There is no indication that the photos were taken or promoted by Trump’s campaign.
The creator behind this fake image claimed he is not a ‘photojournalist’, but a ‘storyteller’
This fake AI-generated image was spread on social media claiming that Trump stopped his motorcade to take a photo with this group of men. The image is not real
‘I don’t claim it’s right. I’m not saying, “Hey, look, Donald Trump was at this party with all these African American voters. Look how much they love him,” Kaye continued.
“If someone votes one way or another because of a photo they see on a Facebook page, that’s an issue with that person, not the post itself.”
The person who created the image of Trump with the young black men, identified only as Shaggy from Michigan, apparently blocked a BBC reporter when asked about the images.
“(My posts) have attracted thousands of wonderful, kind-hearted Christian followers,” Shaggy said before blocking the reporter. The post has been viewed 1.3 million times.
On Monday, Trump-backed super PAC MAGA Inc. launching an ad campaign targeting black voters in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
DailyMail.com has contacted Trump’s campaign and the creators of the images for comment on this story.
This isn’t Trump’s first battle with AI. Last month he accused nefarious operators of using AI to make him look overweight while he played golf.
‘The Fake News used artificial intelligence (AI) to create the image. These are despicable people, but everyone knows that,” Trump criticized.
‘In the other pictures I’m hitting golf balls today to show the difference. Unfortunately, in our country, all you get is Fake News!’
Just as Donald Trump was fined $355 million in a New York courtroom on Friday, the former president posted photos in his Truth Social that made him look fat
The message, which showed one photo of Trump with a big belly, was accompanied by another three showing a slimmed-down Donald, and came at the same time that the judge in his New York case, Judge Arthur F. Engoron, made his statement. .
However, further investigation reveals that the image is not an AI at all, but a photoshopped image of 57-year-old golf cult hero and longtime Trump supporter, John Daly, in an image taken in 2017.
Across the aisle, AI-generated robocalls went out to voters in New Hampshire in January, with Joe Biden’s voice telling people not to vote because the primary was a “bunch of malarkey” and adding, “Save your vote for the November elections.
Trump’s struggle to connect with black voters dates back to his first campaign in 2016.
In February, Trump claimed his four criminal charges would make him popular among black voters because they see him as a victim of discrimination, likening his legal jeopardy to the historical legacy of anti-black bias in the US legal system.
This real image shows the ex-president with African-American supporters, including Terrence Williams, Angela Stanton and Diamond and Silk, praying with Trump in the White House Cabinet Room in February 2020
In 1989, Trump took out full-page newspaper ads calling on New York to reinstate the death penalty, while five black and Latino teenagers were set to stand trial for beating and raping a white woman in Central Park. The teenagers were acquitted
Trump claims he is the victim of political persecution, even though there is no evidence that Biden or White House officials influenced the filing of 91 charges against him.
“I was charged for nothing, for something that is nothing,” Trump told black conservatives in South Carolina.
“And a lot of people said this is why black people like me, because they’ve been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually saw me as being discriminated against. It was pretty amazing, but maybe there’s something there.’
Republicans face an uphill battle in courting black voters, who overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party. And while Black voters’ enthusiasm for Biden has waned over the past year, only 25 percent of Black Americans said they had a favorable view of Trump, according to an AP poll in December.
Trump has a long history of inflaming racial tensions. From his earliest days as a real estate developer in New York, Trump has faced accusations of racist business practices.
In 1989, he took out full-page newspaper advertisements calling on New York to reinstate the death penalty, while five black and Latino teenagers stood trial for beating and raping a white woman in Central Park.
The five men were eventually acquitted in 2002 after another man committed the crime and determined that their confessions had been coerced.
For years he has spread the lie that Obama is ineligible for office. When he was president, Trump mocked “s***hole countries” in Africa and said four members of Congress of color should go back to the “broken and crime-ridden” countries they came from, ignoring the fact that all women are US citizens and three were born in the US.
