AAP FACTCHECK – Less than a month before the US presidential election, a flood of celebrity endorsements for Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are being shared on social media.
However, manipulated photos and interviews taken out of context are being used to fake many of these endorsements.
One Facebook post suggests actor Bill Murray has made “an endorsement for DJT”, a claim being widely shared.
The video clip features Murray discussing Trump, saying he is “such a different character than anyone that has ever been president of the United States” and “this is what this vote means, I think … the country is dissatisfied with the way Washington has worked”.
The comments, however, have been taken out of context. Murray said them in a 2016 interview reacting to Trump’s first election, and it was not an endorsement.
Claims that Elton John and others have endorsed Trump are being shared by InfoWars founder and misinformation spreader Alex Jones, who wrote in a post on X: “Hundreds Of Top Celebrities Like The Rock & Elton John Are Now Endorsing Trump.”
The post takes recent comments by Elton John and The Rock (actor Dwayne Johnson) out of context to imply endorsements.
Singer John told Variety magazine in a September interview that Trump was a fan and he’s “always been friendly towards him”, but refused to endorse any candidate, saying “it’s none of my business how they vote”, adding: “I just hope that people make the right decision to see what the future is going to be. Is it going to be fire and brimstone … or are we going to have a much calmer, a much safer place?”
The Rock spoke at a business conference in Florida in September, and condemned the recent assassination attempt on Trump (50 minutes 14 seconds), saying: “Whether you love Donald, you don’t love Donald, it doesn’t matter. They tried to assassinate him. There’s no room for that.”
However, the actor made no endorsement of Trump, and in an interview with Fox News in April said he wouldn’t be backing a candidate this year, despite endorsing Joe Biden in 2020.
Many other celebrities are being caught up in misleading posts online.
Despite pop megastar Taylor Swift endorsing Harris in September, and calling out Trump for sharing AI-generated false endorsements, false posts online continue to claim she endorses the Republican candidate.
Examples include a post on X using a manipulated image from Swift’s endorsement of Biden and Harris on Instagram in 2020.
Other clearly false, revenue-raising “clickbait satire” posts on Facebook claim Swift regrets endorsing Harris, with no evidence provided.
Hollywood star Keanu Reeves can be seen supposedly holding a T-shirt with an image from the assassination attempt on Trump that says “Never Stop Fighting To Save America” on a viral post spreading on both X and Facebook.
But the image is a manipulated version of a 2017 Getty photograph of Reeves.
There are also examples of misleading Democrat candidate endorsements. An advertisement that appeared to show the Philadelphia Eagles football team endorsing Harris appeared on several bus stops in the city, but the NFL team as well as the artist behind the original artwork, Winston Tseng, have said the image was misused and there is no endorsement.
Another false image posted on X in December 2023 shows musician Bruce Springsteen wearing a “Keep America Trumpless” T-shirt. While Springsteen has endorsed Harris, the image is a fake – the original 2017 photograph can be seen before manipulation on Getty Images.
There has been debate about how much celebrity endorsements affect presidential elections.
While it’s impossible to say how they’ll shape the November 5 results, there was a surge in visits to the nonpartisan voting registration website Swift mentioned after she endorsed Harris.
A study by economists of Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008 estimated Winfrey added an additional one million votes for Obama, while a different study found endorsement could affect perceptions of a candidate’s viability.
The Verdict
False – The claims are inaccurate.
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