"He's failing and flailing": Trump rages about crowd size during extended Truth Social tantrum
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday flooded his Truth Social feed with more than 25 posts and reposts, largely consisting of meandering rants, false claims and misleading AI images. The meltdown came on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, as the GOP nominee continues to lose control of the narrative and his self-defeating impulses against an emerging Democratic polling advantage he can't seem to reverse.
One of the AI images, originally posted on Friday and Saturday by right-wing accounts, depicts an artificially generated crowd of Taylor Swift fans accompanying one real blonde woman wearing a "Swifties for Trump" shirt at a rally. “I accept!” he captioned on the screenshots of fake Swifties, in reference to their made-up support.
Another AI image, showing Vice President Kamala Harris speaking before a large crowd of cadres at a Democratic National Convention decorated with red hues and Communist paraphernalia, was shared by Trump on both Truth Social and X, where the former president recently re-emerged after a long hiatus. It appears to be part of an effort by Trump and right-wing influencers and media to persuade Americans that Harris is a far-left Communist disguised as a mainline liberal, a campaign that also included Trump sharing the New York Post's digitally altered cover photo of Harris speaking at a podium with a Communist hammer and sickle nailed to the front. When reached for comment about the AI images of Harris by CNN, a Trump campaign spokesperson replied with the Post's headline: "Kamunism."
Trump's indulging of these AI images violates his own standard that a candidate using such tools should not be allowed to run for president. Earlier this month, he falsely accused the Harris campaign of sharing an AI image of her supporters (which was proven to be authentic) and called for her disqualified on the grounds of "election interference." One consistency is Trump's obsession with crowd sizes, a topic he continued to drag across Truth Social into Sunday afternoon.
“We had to turn away lots of people yesterday in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, but Comrade Kamala Harris’ Social Media Operation showed empty seats, long before the Rally started, early in the afternoon when, in actuality, we had to turn away 11,500 people!” he wrote. “She’s a Crooked Radical Left Politician, and always will be!”
Ammar Moussa, Harris' rapid response director, tweeting back pictures of a sparsely-filled venue, mocked Trump for not wanting "anyone knowing that he spoke to an empty arena yesterday."
Trump then turned his ire against CNN commentator Van Jones, who on Friday praised Harris for unveiling measures targeted at corporate price gouging and also commended the Democratic candidate for her "strength" and "politics of joy." The former president did not like that, writing over a screenshot of those remarks that "Lightweight Political commentator Van Jones begged me, while in the Oval Office and with tears flowing from his eyes, to help get Criminal Justice Reform approved by the United States Senate."
"I got it done, with Conservative help, and this lowlife, Jones, never once called to thank me, or the others that helped, for what we had done," he complained.
Trump then repeated his claim that he had done more for Black Americans than any other president, with one possible exception. "Along with Opportunity Zones, the long term funding of HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES, and much more, I’ve done more for our black population than anyone other than, perhaps, Abraham Lincoln!!! Sorry, but that’s the way it is!!!” he wrote.
That claim, commonly repeated by Trump, is met with bemusement by historians who point to at least a handful of other presidents who they say have done more, including Lyndon B. Johnson, who oversaw passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Even Trump's own named policies have been met with mixed success at best, with his so-called "Opportunity Zones" often serving the interests of investors and moneyed developers more than local residents. And like many of Trump's other recent lines of attack or self-promotion, it's a message that is apparently failing to stick with its intended audience — the consolidation of Harris' support among Black voters is continuing, according to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll, with the vice president leading Trump 70-9 and 70-11 among Black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania respectively.
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Polls in general continue to indicate a Trump slide nationally and in battleground states. A survey by the New York Times and Siena College released this weekend finds Harris four points ahead of Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, five points ahead in Arizona and two points ahead in North Carolina. Trump maintains a one-point lead in Nevada and four-point lead in Georgia. A Sunday poll by ABC News, The Washington Post and Ipsos gives Harris a three-point national lead with third-party candidates included in the race, and a four-point lead in a head-to-head matchup.
On Monday, Jones returned fire on Trump, suggesting that the former president was reacting desperately to the resurgence in Democratic enthusiasm, his own receding poll numbers and the shift in media attention from him to Harris. "He’s failing and flailing. Listen, they’re saying that these are the worst three weeks of his campaign," Jones said to his colleague Anderson Cooper.
"This is the year in which he got indicted, convicted, and shot at—and actually hit—by a bullet and none of that to him is as bad as possibly not getting as much attention as Kamala."
