Former President Donald Trump shared AI-generated images that falsely claim Taylor Swift’s fans support his campaign.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump shared screenshots of four posts on X that allegedly depict multiple newborn women wearing “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts in various styles. One of the screenshots claimed that Swifties were now supporting Trump after Taylor Swift canceled her concert in Vienna over safety concerns. Another image included the phrase, “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.”
“I accept!” Trump wrote under his post.
However, Trump’s post appears to contain a mix of real and AI-generated images that falsely suggest a broad and coordinated movement of Swifties for Trump. Using a tool created by the non-profit organization True Media In a bid to uncover the spread of election-related deepfakes, WIRED found that many of the images shared by Trump contained “significant evidence of manipulation.”
One of the screenshots shared by Trump came from an anonymous pro-Trump account with over 300,000 followers that regularly posts AI-generated images. After its post about Swifties for Trump, the account shared follow-up post who stated that the original Swifties for Trump post was “satire.”
While there doesn’t seem to be an busy Swifties for Trump campaign initiative, there is an busy Swifties for Harris group. “We don’t represent every Swiftie, but I think there’s a reason we don’t need AI to show our support for Kamala,” says Irene Kim, co-founder Swifties4HarrisWIRED reports.
There’s at least one public Swiftie for Trump. Among the photos Trump shared Sunday on Truth Social was a real photo of Jenna Piwowarczyk, who wore a homemade T-shirt to a Trump rally in Racine, Wisconsin, in June that read “Swifties for Trump.” Piwowarczyk is now selling her handmade T-shirts on Etsy.
Trump has consistently shared AI-generated images. Last week, Trump falsely claimed that Harris’ campaign used AI to artificially inflate crowd sizes at her rallies. Over the weekend, Trump also posted an AI-generated image on X showing Harris speaking at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, with a Soviet flag flying above the crowd.
Disinformation experts warn of threats to election integrity from generative AI tools. WIRED has tracked dozens of examples of generative AI content in elections around the world this year.
Swift has not publicly endorsed any presidential candidate, but she did endorse President Joe Biden in 2020. She has also harshly criticized Trump: After Trump made his infamous “when the looting starts, the shooting starts“comment from 2020 following the Black Lives Matter protests in support of George Floyd, the pop star harshly criticized then-president for “having the audacity to feign moral superiority” after “fanning the flames of white supremacy and racism throughout his presidency.”