© NBC News
A street magician from New Orleans with no permanent residence, who has never voted and claims to have a world record for fork bending, has suddenly found himself at the center of a political scandal. CNN reported that.
Saturday, February 24, 2024 at 12:42
At the end of January, there was a commotion about a phone call that many people in the state of New Hampshire received. They received an answering machine, after which US President Joe Biden encouraged them not to vote in the Democratic primaries. District Attorney John Formella called it an illegal attempt to disrupt the vote and opened an investigation to determine whether it was a criminal offense.
CNN has now found the man who recorded the message. It concerns Paul Carpenter, a 47-year-old magician from New Orleans. He says he was hired by Dean Phillips, a Democrat from Minnesota who makes no secret of being a cool lover of Joe Biden, and proved this through text messages and some recordings.
Not aware of any harm
His voice was edited with AI until the message was fact, and the message caused a stir in the US. After all, this is the first known time that AI has been used to try to influence the election.
But Carpenter, who says he was aware of evil. “I didn’t know how the audio would be used,” he says. “My heart broke when I heard it was being used to discourage people from voting. I am a magician and hypnotist. I don’t get involved in the political world. I was just thrown in.”
Consultant
The cabinet of Dean Phillips denies in American media that it had anything to do with the message. The state’s attorney general announced earlier this month that the message could be linked to consultant Steve Kramer, who received more than $250,000 from Phillips’ campaign in December and January. Carpenter confirms this: he says he was introduced to Kramer on the street in New Orleans by an acquaintance.
Carpenter says he is a tech fanatic. “If you look at the history of magic, you’ll see that magicians have always used the latest forms of technology,” he says. He had previously used this technology to create AI-edited imitations of celebrities. He did several with Kramer, he says. “And this one lasted five minutes, maximum ten. I can make anyone say whatever I want. I got $150 for it.”
He has never voted and says he is not interested in politics. “This was just a job.” The magician assumed that Kramer worked for Biden himself, he added. When news of the hoax call broke, Kramer sent the man another message with “Shhhhh” in it.
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