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Supporters of President Donald Trump have taken to social media to allege that a company called Crowds on Demand has been supplying paid protesters to the anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles and Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings” marches to bolster their numbers.
However, CEO Adam Swart has been busily making the rounds of MAGA-aligned media outlets to correct the false narrative around the “paid protest industry.”
Right-wingers on X have insisted, without evidence, that the numbers turning out to oppose ICE and President Trump are routinely bolstered by hired operatives supplied by Swart’s company.
Crowds on Demand is “currently fielding high demands for the anti-ICE show,” one user confidently asserted last week. At the same time, another jokingly congratulated a liberal celebrating the “No Kings” turnout by saying the company “really came thru for you guys.”
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Others have breezily suggested its activities are bankrolled by billionaire George Soros, a favorite all-purpose bogeyman of the right.
However, the official website for Crowds on Demand, founded by Swart in October 2012, promises only “impactful advocacy campaigns, demonstrations, PR stunts, crowds for hire and corporate events.”
It elaborates: “We are best known for organizing passionate demonstrations, rallies, flash-mobs, corporate PR events, and light-hearted events such as paparazzi, brand ambassadors, and PR stunts.”
Attempting to combat the misinformation, Swart appeared on One America News Network (OANN) last week and said flatly: “The fact is that we are not involved.
“Of course we get contacted in regards to practically every social movement out there but that doesn’t mean we take on these types [of assignments].”
He said Crowds on Demand had not sent any activists-for-hire to Los Angeles “because it involves illegal activity and we do not engage in any form of illegal activity – of course, no violence, no vandalism, and no blocking streets without a permit.”
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“I want to completely disassociate myself and Crowds on Demand with what you see going on,” Swart continued, adding that scenes of demonstrators confronting law enforcement were “more like guerrilla warfare than protest.”
Pushed by OANN anchor Dan Ball to say who he believed was “funding” the demonstrations, Swart evaded the question, saying only that, in his opinion, the participants were nihilistic “psychopaths” bent on sowing anarchy.
Swart has also appeared on podcasts hosted by Newsmax presenter Greg Kelly and boxer David Nino Rodriguez, as well as local radio, to make the same points about this month’s clashes in California, and has previously appeared on Fox News and NewsNation.
He appears to have an unlikely ally in Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence tool Grok, which recently debunked attacks on his company by ruling: “The claim that liberals are paid to march lacks credible evidence of a widespread conspiracy.
“Paid protesting exists, with services like Crowds on Demand hired by various groups, including for liberal causes, but it’s not exclusive to liberals.
“Most protests, like the 2017 Women’s March, appear grassroots, driven by genuine sentiment. The claim is often used rhetorically to discredit protests without solid proof. While some paid participation occurs, no systematic evidence supports the conspiracy.”
