Kamala Harris Crowd Photos: AI or Evan Semón?

On August 10, a handful of supporters cheered the endless motorcade that delivered Donald Trump to a private "Trump 47 Dinner" fundraiser in Aspen, which supporters paid at least $25,000 to attend. (Hosts such as Larry Mizel anted up a fat $500,000. Each.)

Apparently Trump didn't party too hearty, though, because he took to social media the next morning to make an energetic claim that the photos of cheering people who greeted Kamala Harris and Tim Walz at a rally at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on August 7 were created by artificial intelligence.
Authorities estimated that crowd at between 10,000 and 15,000 people, but on Truth Social on August 11, Trump said it was all fake, and that Harris had been busted by an airport maintenance worker who “noticed the fake crowd picture.”

Harris should be “disqualified” from the 2024 election, Trump continued, “because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”

The claim has been debunked by numerous media outlets, including CNN this morning. And photographer Evan Semón, a longtime Westword contributor, knows the crunch was real: He was there to shoot the event for the United Auto Workers Union. "This is total bullshit," he says of the faked-photo charge. "For former president Trump and his team to make this sort of accusation seems very petty. I would hope they could focus on issues to move the country forward and gain votes by telling the truth instead of fabricating stories like this."

Adds Semón: "It's pretty hard to take a photo that curry favors to one campaign or the other. A photographer can only capture what is directly in front of them at any given time. As a photographer and journalist who respects the power of the still image, I'm hurt and offended that the former president continues to promote this far-right conspiracy theory — one easily disproved."

By photos such as these that Semón took in Detroit:

On social media today, Trump had a few parting words for Colorado, "whose Radical Left Governor has gone to all Mail-In Voting, making the State a POLITICAL CESSPOOL where, even if you were leading, it would make no difference! Colorado is run by the Lunatic Left that led the effort, overturned by the United States Supreme Court, to keep me off the ballot. For that reason alone, Colorado will have a BIG TRUMP Vote!"

Trump's most recent visit to the cesspool wasn't wasn't nearly as exciting as that time he vacationed in Aspen back in 1990, when then-Trump wife Ivana accosted then-Trump girlfriend Marla Maples on the slopes. Sadly, Semón was not on hand to capture that catfight action.

Here is Semón in Detroit (we think):