By Curtis Bunn
WASHINGTON, DC — Wayne L. Smith, an engineer in the Washington, D.C., area, scoffed at an image he saw recently of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gleefully nestled among a group of smiling Black people. Seeing the image immediately alarmed him.
“Everything he does to try to get Black people to like him is fake,” Smith said. “Why wouldn’t that photo be fake, too? It just didn’t feel right.”
Smith’s instinct about the photo was correct; it was created by Trump supporter and conservative radio host Mark Kaye, who admitted he used artificial intelligence to create the image and posted it on social media for his 1 million Facebook followers to see. Kaye did not respond to an NBC News request for comment.
“I’m not out there taking pictures of what’s really happening. I’m a storyteller,” Kaye told BBC News, which tracked down the images’ origins. He added, “If anybody’s voting one way or another because of one photo they see on a Facebook page, that’s a problem with that person, not with the post itself.”
Trump’s campaign did not respond to an NBC News request for comment on this article, but last week one campaign official said: “The only ones using AI to meddle in an election are President Trump’s opponents. The Trump Campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these AI images. Nor can we control what other people create and post.”
In this election cycle, Trump has made some headway with Black voters. Sixteen percent of them said in an NBC News poll published in February that they would consider voting for Trump if the election were held today. That’s compared to the 12% who supported Trump in 2020.
Still, this photo generation was the latest in a series of awkward efforts — including claiming he’s being persecuted in the legal system — by Trump, his campaign and his supporters to try to show a connection with Black voters.
“They want our vote but don’t know how to get it,” Smith said. “Biden’s no peach, but he’s not Trump. And they know that. That’s why they are trying anything. Tricks. Deception. And, to me, they’re just making it worse by insulting us.”
On one hand, said Rhonda Sherrod, who ran for a Democratic Illinois Senate seat this year, these moves to appeal to Black voters rely on racist stereotypes and can be insulting. In a recent NBC News focus group of likely Black voters, participants all generally agreed that Trump’s rhetoric can often be racist.
“I got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing,” Trump said to a group of Black conservatives last month in South Carolina before the state’s primary. “And a lot of people said that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against. It’s been pretty amazing but possibly, maybe, there’s something there.”
All the while, these efforts to illustrate Black voters embracing Trump may also appeal to white voters who have found his previous statements and actions discomforting, said Calvin Lawrence, an IBM chief training officer for responsible and trustworthy AI.
“What about those independent white people who dislike him and won’t vote for him for the mere reason they think he’s a racist?” Lawrence said. “When you see these deep fake videos and images generated by AI with him wrapped up with Black folks, they’re also targeting those white voters and saying, ‘Look. I’m not a racist. He’s not a racist.’ They are using AI on a larger scale.”
Beyond the AI-generated photographs, Trump has also boasted that Black people will connect with him because he has had a mug shot taken.
“My mug shot,” Trump said to the Black conservative group. “We’ve all seen the mug shot, and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population. You see Black people walking around with my mug shot, you know. They do shirts, and they sell them for $19 apiece. It’s pretty amazing — millions by the way.”
In February Trump unveiled the Never Surrender High-Top Sneaker, a limited edition $399 pair of gold shoes with American flag details, a day after he and his company were ordered to pay a $453 million penalty for real estate fraud. Raymond Arroyo, a Fox News contributor, said in February that Trump’s release of golden sneakers will be attractive to Black voters because “they love sneakers.”
