| New reporting exposes Brad Finstad for running an ad using “what appeared to be an AI-generated” fake image of Jake Johnson – manipulated to remove a veteran and small business owner who repeatedly asked to meet with about the tariffs hurting her small business.
Finstad took a photo of Jake and Beth Benike, Minnesota’s small business person of the year, who reached out to Finstad multiple times for a meeting about the tariffs, and doctored the photo to remove Benike.
Benike to HuffPost: “My own congressman wouldn’t even talk to me in my time of deepest need that he was directly impacting and continuing to make worse, and now he’s using a photo taken at my warehouse and took me out of it? Can you make someone feel any less significant?”
DCCC spokesperson Katie Smith:
“Brad Finstad is doctoring photos because he cannot defend his record raising prices, supporting the ongoing Iran War, and giving tax breaks to data center developers.”
Read more:
HuffPost: GOP Rep. Brad Finstad Runs Attack Ad That Erases Critical Voter From Photo
“What a poor decision,” Beth Benike said of her congressman altering her photo with Democrat Jake Johnson to make a fake image…
- Minnesota small business owner Beth Benike was watching the Netflix show “Bridgerton” on Monday night when she noticed a familiar image in a political ad that aired during a commercial break: the exact shot of Democratic congressional nominee Jake Johnson from a photo she’d been in with him last year.
- Except in this attack ad from Johnson’s opponent, Republican Rep. Brad Finstad, Benike wasn’t in the photo anymore. In her place, in what appeared to be an AI-generated image, was Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.
- Just as bizarre to Benike is why Finstad, her congressman, was using a photo with her in it at all: she’s been a very public critic of his support for President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
- After being named Minnesota’s Small Business Person of the Year in March 2025, Benike was making news days later talking about struggling because of Trump’s tariffs. She reached out to Finstad several times for help, but said he didn’t offer any. When she twice tried to meet with him in Washington, D.C., he declined. She met Johnson in April, when he heard her story and asked if he could come to her warehouse to learn more about tariffs.
- That’s where they ended up in a photo together, and why Benike quickly recognized Johnson’s image in Finstad’s campaign ad. She said she remembers that day “really clearly,” including what Johnson was wearing and where they were standing in her warehouse.
- “I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Benike told HuffPost, with a weak laugh. “My own congressman wouldn’t even talk to me in my time of deepest need that he was directly impacting and continuing to make worse, and now he’s using a photo taken at my warehouse and took me out of it? Can you make someone feel any less significant?”
- You can see the image for yourself. On the left, the real photo of Benike with Johnson, which he shared on Facebook in April 2025. On the right, the manipulated image of Johnson with Walz in Finstad’s campaign ad.
- It’s not clear why Finstad’s campaign thought it would be a good idea to use a photo with Benike in it, remove her from it and then doctor it…
- “What a poor decision,” said Benike. “You’d better believe I’m going to be sharing this with the people that have been following my story…. It almost feels like an attack, like ’we’ll show how insignificant she is.”
- Johnson campaign spokesperson Nik Marda knocked Finstad for “fabricating fake photos because he can’t defend his record.”
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