A new ad appearing on the streets of Philadelphia on Monday showed Vice President Kamala Harris in an Eagles uniform holding a football, with “KAMALA” in bold letters above the tagline “Official candidate of the Philadelphia Eagles.”
The NFL team confirmed that the ads were fake.
“We are aware counterfeit political ads are being circulated and are working with our advertising partner to have them removed,” the Eagles said in a statement posted to social media.
NBC Philadelphia reported spotting at least six of the counterfeit ads around the city before they were taken down later on Monday. It is unclear who was responsible for them.
The ads also included a link to Philadelphiaeagles.com/vote, which is a real but nonpartisan site listing important election dates and resources for voter registration.
Intersection Media, the company that owns the bus stop advertising where the ads were found, released a statement to NBC Philadelphia claiming that the ads were not paid for but were instead forcibly placed into the ad boxes.
“We are aware that several of our bus shelters located in Philadelphia have been vandalized and that the paid advertising copy in each of those shelters has been replaced with unauthorized copy,” said Scott Goldsmith, the President and CEO of Intersection Media.
The statement noted that while the ad boxes are locked to prevent vandalism, people sometimes manage to unlock them and insert unauthorized material.
“We note that the Eagles and Intersection had nothing to do with the creation or posting of this unauthorized copy and Intersection staff will be removing the ads as soon as possible,” Goldsmith said.
The physical break-ins were confirmed to NBC Philadelphia by a city spokesperson.
“This was not a digital breach; whomever is responsible for the illegally placed posters, broke into the securely covered shelter ad space and somehow put the posters in the space,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, fake political ads have proliferated online, including a Kamala Harris deepfake that went viral in July and AI-generated images of Donald Trump that spread misinformation earlier this year.
Kamala Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to an NBC News request for comment.
