Trump Shares AI-Generated Images Falsely Claiming Taylor Swift's Endorsement

Donald Trump posts fake images of Taylor Swift endorsement

Donald Trump appears to have shared a series of fake images on his social media site, suggesting Taylor Swift and some of her fans are endorsing him for the upcoming election. The pictures posted by the former Republican president on Truth Social included a mock poster of Swift dressed in red, white and blue, with a caption that said: "Taylor Swift Wants You To Vote For Donald Trump." "I accept!" Mr Trump wrote. Swift has not publicly endorsed a candidate in the 2024 race but previously supported Joe Biden and has criticised Mr Trump in the past. The images also included fans wearing "Swifties for Trump" T-shirts. While two of the images feature a real woman who supports Mr Trump, most of the women depicted aren't real, Sky News' US partner NBC News reports. At least 15 are representations of people created using artificial intelligence. The images he shared had originally been posted on X (formerly Twitter) by pro-Trump accounts. One of those accounts also posted multiple guides to using generative AI tools on its Substack blog, according to NBC News. "There is no Swifties For Trump movement - but there should be," acknowledged one of the accounts that Trump reposted on Truth Social, in a caption on the AI-generated images. However, Mr Trump's campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told the Reuters news agency that the "Swifties for Trump is a massive movement that grows bigger every single day", when asked for comment about the fake Swift image. Swift has been performing her final Eras shows of the European leg of her tour, which is due to finish at Wembley Stadium tonight. Some of Swift's fans previously mobilised to support Kamala Harris's campaign. The vice president is set to be formally nominated as the 2024 Democratic candidate at the party's national convention in Chicago this week. Shortly after Mr Biden announced he was not running for re-election in July, a group called "Swifties for Kamala" launched on social media. It has more than 61,000 followers on X and is not affiliated with the singer or Harris. "We do not represent every Swiftie, but I think there is a reason we don't need AI to show our support for Kamala," the organisation's co-founder, Irene Kim, told NBC News in a statement. AI-generated images and videos of Swift have repeatedly gone viral this year, including deepfake sexual pictures on X which broke the platform's guidelines. Several Swift fans and watchdog groups said many of the images posted by Mr Trump appeared to be deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence. Sky News has contacted representatives for Swift for comment.

Trump shares fake AI images of Taylor Swift endorsement

Donald Trump at The Believers Summit in Florida. Image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) Trump shared multiple fake images on Truth Social, including one showing Taylor Swift with the caption 'Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump'. US presidential candidate Donald Trump has turned to AI to boost his campaign and is using fake images to claim endorsement from Taylor Swift and her fanbase. These AI-generated images show various people wearing "Swifties for Trump" t-shirts, along with one image of Swift herself with the caption "Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump". The former US president shared these images on Truth Social and said "I accept". Swift has not publicly endorsed any candidate for the 2024 US election. Two of the images Trump shared show the same woman in different angles. These two images look real while the other images - including that of Swift herself - bear more of the usual traits to show they are AI generated. The images are screenshots posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. The Guardian reports that the accounts that shared these images have a history of sharing misinformation online. Meanwhile, Trump also used AI-generated images to criticise presidential candidate Kamala Harris. He shared a fake image of Harris speaking to a crowd in Chicago with a large Soviet Union flag among the crowd, who are all wearing similar military uniforms. While Trump uses AI-generated images for his own campaign, he has also been quick to accuse others of doing the same. He recently claimed Harris used AI to make the size of one her rallies larger than it was - fact checkers used AI-detection tools on the image and said it was likely real. The use of AI during elections is a growing concern, raising fears that this technology can be used to spread disinformation, create deepfakes and confuse voters. Elon Musk - now a major supporter of Trump - Musk recently shared a fake campaign video for Harris which used an AI-generated version of her voice. Earlier this year, an AI-generated voice of US president Joe Biden urged people not to vote in primary elections. The penalties for using AI to lie as part of a political campaign are unclear - precedent in the US allows people to lie in political advertising. But Robert Weissman, copresident of Public Citizen, suggested to The Verge that Swift herself may be able to sue Trump under certain State laws for falsely using her likeness for his campaign. Meanwhile, a group of US senators recently introduced a No Fakes Act to make the creation of voice and visual likenesses of people, such as AI deepfakes, illegal without their consent. Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. Donald Trump at The Believers Summit in Florida. Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Trump Shares AI-Generated Taylor Swift Endorsement

Donald Trump would like his followers to believe that pop music megastar Taylor Swift advocates voting red. But that may just be in his wildest dreams. "I accept!" the former President posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday, along with a collage of images from the internet -- including some apparently generated by artificial intelligence -- showing the TIME Person of the Year dressed as Uncle Sam and saying "Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump" as well as numerous Swift fans expressing their support for the Republican presidential nominee. Taylor Swift has not officially endorsed any candidate in the 2024 election, though she previously backed the Biden-Harris campaign in 2020 and has criticized Trump for "stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism" and for defunding the U.S. Postal Service in 2020, which she described as choosing to "blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans' lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power." TIME has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on a potential Swift endorsement, as the Democratic Party kicks off its convention this week in Chicago, where a number of celebrities are expected to speak and perform in support of the Harris-Walz campaign. Read More: Your Questions About the Democratic National Convention, Answered At least one so-called "Swiftie for Trump" -- pictured twice in Trump's post -- is real. According to Wisconsin Right Now, 19-year-old Jenna Piwowarczyk was seen sporting the slogan on a homemade white T-shirt at a Trump rally in Wisconsin in June. But there's no evidence that a significant number of fans of Swift are supporting the Republican candidate -- an unofficial Swifties for Trump account on X (created in July) has less than 4,000 followers, while an unofficial Swifties 4 Kamala account, also created in July, has over 60,000 followers on X and over 100,000 on TikTok. Read More: The Kamala Harris Campaign Is Embracing the Memes Trump's Truth Social post also included a screenshot of a post by conservative account Amuse, featuring clearly AI-generated images of young women wearing "Swifties for Trump" T-shirts, accompanied by a headline, labeled as "satire," that says Swiftes are "turning to Trump" after the singer's Vienna concert was canceled out of concern over a jihadist terrorist plot. The original post on X acknowledges in its image alt. text: "There is no Swifties For Trump movement - but there should be." In another Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump reshared a TikTok video of a woman claiming that Swifties were now "rallying for Trump" because of the same terrorist plot. Trump has spoken about Swift before, telling Ramin Setoodeh, author of Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass, "I hear she's very talented" and "I think she's very, I think she's very beautiful, actually -- unusually beautiful." As for Swift's politics, Trump is quoted in the same book as saying, "I think she's liberal. She probably doesn't like Trump" -- though he expressed some skepticism about that, reportedly questioning: "She's legitimately liberal? It's not an act? It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal." As experts warn of the dangers of disinformation in politics, which new technology can exacerbate, Trump's recent sharing of the Swift-related AI-generated images comes after he and billionaire Elon Musk shared an AI-altered video on X last week depicting them dancing after the two held a high-profile livestream together on the social media platform owned by Musk.

Donald Trump falsely claims Taylor Swift's endorsement with AI images

Former President Donald Trump has shared AI-generated images suggesting Taylor Swift fans support his campaign. And Swifties are not happy. Donald Trump is at it again, and this time he's shared AI-generated images that falsely suggest that he has Taylor Swift's backing for the upcoming elections. Last night, the former President shared a series of posts on his Truth Social account, including screenshots of AI images of Swifties wearing shirts with the slogan "Swifties For Trump". One of the images depicts a photoshopped picture of Swift dressed in an Uncle Sam-style outfit, with the text reading: "TAYLOR WANTS YOU TO VOTE FOR DONALD TRUMP." He shared the collage of Swift fans, that's clearly labelled "satire", captioning with the words: "I accept!" Additionally, Trump shared a fake news article that falsely claimed Swift's fans are "turning to Trump" following the recent terror plot targeting her concerts in Vienna. These moves to make his followers believe that the pop superstar is advocating to vote Trump have been viewed as ludicrous and a desperate bid for Trump to prop up his ailing campaign, with some fans clamouring for legal action. Swift has not officially endorsed any candidate for president in the 2024 election. She has broadly maintained a calculated silence over her political views, and has recently been criticised for her lack of comment over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. She had been rumored to be a Republican during the 2016 election cycle, before publicly sharing her political views for the first time when she endorsed two Democratic party candidates back in 2018 for the US mid-term elections. "In the past I've been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now," she wrote on Instagram at the time. "I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country." She went on to support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020, taking aim at Trump in the wake of the George Floyd protests that same year. Swift criticized Trump for "stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism" and for defunding the US Postal Service in 2020, a move she described as choosing to "blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans' lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power." Earlier this month, a photo shared on Swift's Instagram account triggered speculation that she was about to endorse Kamala Harris. However, this was easily debunked. Trump also commented on Swift earlier this year. In an interview with Variety editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh for his book, "Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass", he questioned whether the pop singer was actually a liberal. "She is liberal, or is that just an act?" he asked Setoodeh during their interview. "She's legitimately liberal? It's not an act? It surprises me that a country star can be successful being liberal." According to CNN, there is speculation surrounding whether Swift will perform at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week -- although there is no confirmation of this.

Trump Reposts AI-Generated Images Claiming Support From Taylor Swift Fans

(Credit: Michael M. Santiago / Employee / Getty Images News via Getty Images) Donald Trump reposted four AI-generated images on Truth Social claiming to show a burgeoning "Swifties for Trump" movement. "I accept!" he wrote. It's unclear if the former president is aware the images are computer-generated. PCMag ran all four through an AI image detector, which determined they are very likely artificial. The first image is also labeled "satire." It was posted by a conservative account on X, as were the other three by a separate account that mentions "MAGA" in its bio. An endorsement by Taylor Swift and her fans ("Swifties") could help Trump in the polls. However, Taylor Swift has not endorsed any candidate for the 2024 presidential election. She supported President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2020. Last week, Trump falsley accused VP Harris of using AI to generate a fake image of a large crowd at her rally in Detroit. Photos and videos from multiple news organizations, including the AP and Getty Images, show thousands of people at the event. AI-generated images of Trump himself also circulated social media last week, created with the updated version of Elon Musk's Grok-2 chatbot. It allows requests for visuals of celebrities and politicians, which competitors such as OpenAI and Midjourney have blocked to avoid the spread of misinformation ahead of the election.

'Swifties' Decry 'Bad Blood' With Trump After He Posts AI Shots of Taylor Claiming Her Support

Some fans are even encouraging their pop star icon to sue Trump. President Trump posted AI-generated images of Taylor Swift on his Truth Social account as if she had endorsed him, sending the pop star's "Swifties" into a tailspin, with the president of her fan club lashing out that they don't need artificial intelligence to show support. "We do not represent every Swiftie, but I think there is a reason we don't need AI to show our support for Kamala," a co-founder of the pro-Harris advocacy account Swifties for Kamala, Irene Kim, told Wired on Monday. Some Swift fans are taking their objections a step further and encouraging their pop star icon to sue Trump for sharing a misleading endorsement claim. "As a lawyer, I would NOT want to be on Trump's legal team right now," a Gen-Z politician, Cheyenne Hunt, wrote on X. "Squaring up against Taylor Swift's lawyers in a case about a brand new A.I. regulation would not be a good time!" Another user, Fiona Adorno, added: "Doesn't he know she can sue for using her image like this? That the devotion of a Swiftie knows no bounds? Doesn't he understand her power? I think he will soon." Other pro-Swift accounts used the opportunity to campaign against Trump. "Real, not AI-generated Swiftie here. Swifties are OVERWHELMINGLY supporting @KamalaHarris and @Tim_Walz because we know that Trump's extreme Project 2025 is dangerous for women and LGBTQ+ people," Swiftie4Harris wrote on X. The comments are in response to a cluster of images that Trump recently shared on his Truth Social platform depicting hordes of women wearing "Swifties for Trump" T-shirts. He captioned the post, "I accept!" While one of the images he shared shows a real woman wearing a "Swifties for Trump" shirt at a rally, the rest of the pictures are AI generated, including one that claims to show "Swifties turning to Trump after ISIS foiled Taylor Swift concert" -- a reference to the Swift concerts at Vienna that were canceled after police discovered an Islamic extremist was planning an attack on the venue. The image depicts various AI-generated women donning T-shirts emblazoned with the pro-Trump, pro-Swift message in various formats. The graphic also boasts a small "satire" disclosure on the left side of the graphic. Another image shows the celebrated pop star herself positioned as Uncle Sam with the caption, "Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump." It's unclear whether Trump was aware that the images he was sharing were AI-generated. What is certain, that, is that Ms. Swift has not offered the 45th president her coveted nod of approval. While Ms. Swift has yet to officially announce a presidential endorsement, she has spoken out against Trump in previous election cycles. "After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? 'When the looting starts the shooting starts'??? We will vote you out in November. @realdonaldtrump," she wrote on X. She later offered a formal endorsement of President Biden. While rumors swirled earlier this month that Ms. Swift may have slipped an endorsement of Ms. Harris into a coded Instagram post, it appears that the scuttlebutt has been debunked: the picture showed the silhouette of a background dancer, not a power-suit-wearing Kamala Harris. Even without Ms. Swift's guidance, hordes of Swifties have united behind Ms. Harris's campaign, forming a "Swifties for Kamala" coalition that boasts more than 62,000 followers on X. Ms. Harris's decision to nominate Mr. Walz -- a known Swiftie -- as her running mate served as further encouragement for politically minded Swift fans who were quick to dub the Minnesota governor the "Swiftie VP."

Donald Trump shares seemingly fake pictures of Taylor Swift -- and Swifties are furious

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in. Swift has not endorsed either presidential candidate, but previously supported the Biden-Harris campaign and accused Trump of "stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism." While one image does appear to be a genuine picture of Trump supporter Jenna Piwowarczyk, Swift's fans are not pleased with the AI images. "Swifties -- let's get Taylor's attention on this. It's disgusting. We know Tay does not support Trump or the use of AI to spread misinformation using her likeness. She needs to get her legal team to respond ASAP," one X user said. Others encouraged the singer to take legal action against Trump for using her likeness without permission. In a response to Trump's Truth Social post, one user said: "She would NEVER endorse you. You're talking about the queen of the childless cat ladies here. Girlfriend has her own damn army." "I hope this triggers Taylor Swift to come all out in support of Harris. You don't play with the Swifties," another X user posted. With a US adult fan base nearly as large as the 2020 presidential vote count, the superstar's endorsement could significantly boost either campaign. Swift's fans are also known for their fierce loyalty and organization -- getting on their bad side is unlikely to work out well for the former president. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Analysis | Trump's AI fakes of Harris and Swift aren't meant to fool you

Sorry, a summary is not available for this article at this time. Please try again later. Over the weekend, the Republican presidential candidate shared a pair of posts on his social network, Truth Social, that included AI-generated images: one depicting a hammer-and-sickle flag over a Soviet-style Harris rally, another showing young women in "Swifties for Trump" T-shirts. On Monday, he reposted the Harris image to X and sent an email to supporters calling it "the photo Kamala doesn't want you to see." What's noteworthy isn't just that Trump is turning to generative AI to blur the truth. It's the casual, almost mundane way he's using it so far: not as a sophisticated weapon of deception, but as just another tool in his rhetorical arsenal. Experts have been warning for years of AI's potential to fuel political misinformation. For many, the nightmare scenario centers on a sophisticated, AI-generated or manipulated video that tricks millions into believing a bombshell falsehood. Imagine a video that appears to show election workers secretively trashing ballots or a candidate accepting a bribe. While there have been a few examples like that, especially abroad, Trump's use of AI over the weekend illustrates a simpler -- and so far, much more common -- application of the technology. The images of Swifties for Trump and Harris as a communist leader don't appear intended primarily to fool people, though of course some might be taken in. The Swifties image, part of an X post of which Trump shared a screenshot, carried a "satire" label. The Harris image was unlabeled but patently unrealistic. Rather, the images seem to function more like memes, meant to provoke and amuse. They're visual parallel to the nasty nicknames Trump calls his opponents and the evidence-free claims he often makes on the trail. For a politician whose favored rhetorical mode is the unconfirmed anecdote -- "Many people are saying ... " -- generative AI offers a handy new way to illustrate his stories. This becomes evident when you view the images Trump posted over the weekend in the context of his other Truth Social posts. Far from standing out, the AI depictions of Harris and Swift nestle right into a timeline replete with satirical songs, photoshopped images, jabs at "Comrade Harris" and dubious claims about rally crowd sizes. The same day Trump posted the AI image of Harris with the hammer-and-sickle banner, the New York Post's front page portrayed Harris speaking from a dais adorned with a giant hammer-and-sickle logo, under the banner headline "Kamunism." Trump posted that too. The distinction between AI memes and deepfakes might seem trivial at first. Both uses of the technology serve to smear political rivals and muddy the informational waters. Both also contribute to the so-called "liar's dividend," in which the proliferation of fakes and falsehoods makes it easier for people to dismiss the truth as a fabrication -- as Trump did when he suggested that Harris had "A.I'd" a genuine photo of a large crowd greeting her in Michigan. But a convincing deepfake is hard to make, at least for now, whereas generating less realistic AI images is easier than ever. Even as leading AI image tools such as OpenAI's Dall-E 3 and Midjourney have sought to prevent users from generating images that could be associated with political misinformation, Elon Musk's X last week debuted a new version of its Grok AI tool that has few such limitations. A report on Monday by NewsGuard, a company that tracks misinformation, found that Grok complied with 16 of 20 test requests to produce such images; Midjourney complied with nine and Dall-E two. And while a deepfake needs careful debunking, AI memes are impervious to fact-checks -- the intended audience doesn't care whether they're literally true. The fake images feel true on some level, or at least it's enjoyable to imagine that they might be. And if the other side gets righteously riled up about it, the joke is on them. (Democrats troll too; think JD Vance and the couch.) We might yet see more sophisticated attempts to dupe people with realistic AI fakes in this election cycle, or in others to come. But we also shouldn't be surprised if AI continues to be used more for propaganda than trickery. As Mike Caulfield, an information literacy expert and author of the book "Verified" put it in a recent blog post: The primary use of "misinformation" is not to change the beliefs of other people at all. Instead, the vast majority of misinformation is offered as a service for people to maintain their beliefs in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In reality, any involvement in the election from Swift would probably work in Harris's favor. But the world of AI offers Trump and his backers an appealing alternate reality in which the Harris campaign is in shambles and even Swifties are turning against her. Whether playing pretend in this way will help or hurt Trump at the polls in November is unclear. But if his plan B is to question the results of the election, a supporter base accustomed to living in fantasyland could come in handy.

'He's just, like, an old guy': Gen Z Democrats laugh at Donald Trump-Taylor Swift AI drama

CHICAGO - Former President Donald Trump made headlines Sunday when he reposted artificially-created images on his Truth Social account falsely suggesting he had the support of one of the world's most famous and influential celebrities: Taylor Swift. Gen Zers attending the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday greeted the news with wit and sarcasm - tempered by concern about the risks of artificial intelligence. Swift endorsed Biden in the 2020 election, and her calls to her fans to register to vote have resulted in massive spikes in new registrations around the country. But the superstar has stayed out of the current presidential race. Maya Luna, a 20-year-old from Connecticut who works on youth voter mobilization, said with a laugh the online saga is fresh evidence that the former president is a "lying a--hole." "His campaign is falling apart, and he can't attack Kamala without being either racist or misogynistic, so that's what he's left with," she said. Sign-up for Your Vote: Text with the USA TODAY elections team. Luna, with the Gen Z group Progress Libs, doesn't think a Swift endorsement would change the landscape of the presidential race: Her organization and similar groups have already seen an outpouring of support for the newly formed Harris-Walz ticket, she said. The fact the president's campaign potentially mistook AI for reality makes it "even funnier," Luna said. "I don't want to, like, empathize with Trump at all. ... But there's a chance he's just, like, an old guy who thought it was real." Anica Czander, 28, thinks it raises an important policy issue. "I think that we're far overdue for some AI regulation," Czander said. "I was concerned for the people who were believing it. ... We need to have a way to protect people who aren't as easily able to identify that sort of content." "It seems like a really good opportunity to bring that into the main political discourse," she said, noting Swift is "known to be litigious." The image in question shows Swift dressed similarly to Uncle Sam and with the words 'Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.' Trump reposted the image with the words "I accept." The singer has not addressed the fake image. But the Trump campaign has doubled down. Communications Director Steven Cheung issued a statement claiming the former Republican has the support from many Swift fans. "Swifties for Trump is a massive movement that grows bigger every single day. While Kamala Harris is guilty as sin for all the hurt she has caused every American," his statement read. Two of the photos, depicting a Trump supporter wearing a "Swifties for Trump" T-shirt, were real, CNN has reported, though several others were AI-generated. Jenna Knupple, 26, said Swift's endorsement would be a big deal since she has plenty of sway among young people. Many young people care more about celebrities than the actual issues, which concerns her if fans falsely believe that Trump has Swift's endorsement. "You might truly think this is real and maybe hop on a bandwagon just because you think that your favorite artist is in support of this. So I think it could potentially have some type of pull," Knupple said. "We see that Swifties will do a lot of the things as they think Taylor Swift or what she has said." "I laugh because it's so true," agreed Elisa Calderon, 24, in a separate interview. "I feel like if Taylor were to endorse Harris, that would have a huge effect on the youth." Tyler Sykes, 19, said in addition to Swift, he could see the endorsement from one other major star having a similar impact and influence on young voters: Beyonce. Beyonce has not indicated her support for any candidate so far, but she authorized Harris to use her song "Freedom" as her campaign theme song. That has raised speculation that her endorsement of Harris is imminent. Sykes said neither star's endorsement would influence the way he votes, but added that it might be different in other circumstances where he didn't know who to vote for. He said he felt enthusiastic to cast his first vote for president in favor of Harris, noting the historic significance. "I think it's exciting, and the possibility of having the first female president is a huge opportunity for my first presidential election," he added.