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New Hampshire
Magician says political consultant hired him to create AI Biden robocall ahead of New Hampshire primary
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A New Orleans magician said Friday that a Democratic consultant who worked for Dean Phillips’ presidential campaign hired him to create the audio for what authorities have said may be the first known attempt to use artificial intelligence to interfere with a U.S. election.
Paul Carpenter told The Associated Press he was hired by Steve Kramer to use AI to mimic President Joe Biden’s voice for the robocalls, which sought to discourage people from voting in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary last month.
New Hampshire authorities have said the recorded message, sent to thousands of voters two days before the Jan. 23 election, violated the state’s voter suppression laws. They have issued cease-and-desist orders to two Texas companies they believe were involved. The connection to the Louisiana magician was first reported by NBC News.
A spokesperson for Attorney General John Formella declined to comment Friday on whether investigators are looking into Carpenter or Kramer, saying only that the investigation continues.
WATCH: The potentially dangerous implications of an AI tool creating extremely realistic video
The Phillips’ campaign denounced the calls and Kramer’s alleged actions, saying the $260,000 it paid him in December and January was for help getting on the ballot in New York and Pennsylvania.
“If it is true that Mr. Kramer had any involvement in the creation of deepfake robocalls, he did so of his own volition which had nothing to do with our campaign,” spokeswoman Katie Dolan said in an emailed statement. “The fundamental notion of our campaign is the importance of competition, choice, and democracy. We are disgusted to learn that Mr. Kramer is allegedly behind this call, and if the allegations are true, we absolutely denounce his actions.”
Reached by text, Kramer referred questions Friday to political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who did not immediately respond to an email message.
Liz Purdy, a senior adviser for the Biden-Harris campaign in New Hampshire, said it supports efforts to hold accountable anyone who attempts to disrupt elections and remains “hypervigilant” to disinformation threats.
In the phone interview with the AP, Carpenter said he met Kramer through a mutual acquaintance and that they were staying at the same New Orleans house when they discussed the use of AI to create audio.
Carpenter, a street magician who told NBC that he holds world records in fork-bending and straitjacket escapes, said he has been involved in making social media content for about 20 years. Screenshots he shared with NBC News and the AP include a text Kramer sent him three days before the primary saying he had emailed Carpenter a script. Venmo transactions show an account with the same name as Kramer’s father paid Carpenter $150 on Jan. 20, three days before the primary.
READ MORE: FCC bans AI-generated voices in robocalls that can deceive voters
Two days later, when news of the fake Biden robocall broke, the texts provided by Carpenter show Kramer texting him a link to a story and the message, “Shhhhhhh.”
Carpenter said when he made the audio, he thought Kramer was working for the Biden campaign. He told the AP he has an attorney and is considering legal action against Kramer.
“I didn’t know anything about him working on the other presidential campaign,” he said.
Carpenter, who said he has no permanent address and divides his time between New Orleans and Houston, told NBC News that Kramer instructed him to delete the Biden script and other emails and that he complied.
The recorded robocall was sent to between 5,000 and 25,000 voters. It used a voice similar to Biden’s, employed his often-used phrase, “What a bunch of malarkey” and falsely suggested that voting in the primary would preclude voters from casting a ballot in November’s general election.
Biden won the Democratic primary as a write-in candidate after he kept his name off the ballot in deference to South Carolina’s new lead-off position for the Democratic primaries.
The calls falsely showed up to recipients as coming from the personal cellphone number of Kathy Sullivan, a former state Democratic Party chair who helps run Granite for America, a super PAC that supported the Biden write-in campaign.
Sullivan said in an email Friday that she had not heard of Kramer until she read the NBC story, and has received “no apology from Dean Phillips for his highly paid consultant spoofing my number.”
McGill reported from New Orleans.
New Hampshire
Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters
As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.
“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.
“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”
Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.
“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.
He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”
Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.
For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.
“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”
Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.
CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.
On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”
Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.
29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.
“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.
While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.
“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,
“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.
“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.
Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.
“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.
Local News
Police say the Attleboro man was driving 104 mph in a 55 mph zone on Route 202 near in Rindge, New Hampshire.
A Massachusetts man was arrested late Wednesday night after police say he was driving more than 100 mph on a New Hampshire roadway.
Officers with the Rindge Police Department stopped a vehicle shortly after 11 p.m. on Route 202 near Sears Drive in Rindge following a report of a car traveling at excessive speed, according to a statement from Chief Rachel Malynowski.
The vehicle, a 2020 Kia Stinger, was spotted traveling at 104 mph in a posted 55 mph zone, Malynowski said.
The driver, a 21-year-old man from Attleboro, was arrested and charged with reckless operation of a motor vehicle, according to police.
He is scheduled to be arraigned April 5. If convicted, the man faces a fine of at least $750, in addition to the court’s penalty assessment, and a 90-day license suspension, Malynowski said.
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