By Stephen Macaulay
Back in January 2017, while making a speech at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters, Donald Trump claimed that the size of the crowd at his inauguration earlier that week had been “like a million, a million and a half people.”
It has been estimated that the size of the 2009 Obama inauguration crowd was that big.
And photographic evidence comparing the two events shows the number of people in Washington was significantly smaller for Trump.
But as Trump said to the VFW convention the following year, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”
The bizarre Trump crowd size estimate gave rise to Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts.”
Here we are, seven years later, and Trump is still concerned about crowd sizes.
At his Mar-a-Lago press conference August 8 he started throwing out numbers. Like claiming he had 107,000 people at a rally in New Jersey, which Newsweek calculated to be <60,000.
Then there were the small numbers:
“What did she have yesterday? 2,000 people? If I ever had 2,000 people, you'd say my campaign is finished. It's so dishonest, the press. … When she gets 1,500 people, and I saw it yesterday on ABC, which they said, ‘Oh, the crowd was so big.’ … I have 10 times, 20 times, 30 times the crowd size. And no, they never say the crowd was big. … I think it's so terrible when you say, ‘Well she has 1,500 people, 1,000 people,’ and they talk about, oh, the enthusiasm.”
Which seems to mean Trump is saying his crowds are 20,000, 40,000 or 60,000 people. If he did the math, he’d probably be embarrassed about the low estimates he made.
While he went on to claim that were he president “You wouldn’t have had inflation” and that if he isn’t reelected “Everybody’s going to be forced to buy an electric car,” he did resume the crowd theme: “I have hundreds of thousands of people in, uh, South Carolina. I had 88,000 people in Alabama. I had 68,000 people.”
About that 88,000-person event in South Carolina.
Caitlin Byrd of The Post and Courier, based in Charleston, South Carolina, writes one of the most brilliant assessments of that claim:
“But the rally Trump appeared to be referencing wasn't a rally at all. It was a football game.
“The former president seemed to be mentioning his November 25 appearance at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia for the state's biggest college football spectacle of the year: the Clemson-South Carolina football matchup.
“The game was not a Trump campaign rally. It's a college duel that takes place every year.
“His appearance was brief.
“Trump walked onto the field, standing at the 25-yard-line with Gov. Henry McMaster. Loud cheers greeted him along with scattered boos. Trump waved to fans and the student section.
“He made no remarks. He just smiled and waved.”
Byrd goes on to point out: “The official box score put the crowd attendance for that game at 80,172 — not 88,000.”
Imagine if he’d gone to the Indianapolis 500.
Trump’s latest ploy is to claim that Harris’ crowds are non-existent, that Harris campaign is putting out fake pictures, such as at a rally held last week at an airplane hangar at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
Trump posted on Truth Social: “She’s a CHEATER. She had NOBODY waiting, and the ‘crowd’ looked like 10,000 people! Same thing is happening with her fake ‘crowds’ at her speeches. She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE.”
Even the local Fox News affiliate in Detroit noted: “Former President Trump is claiming that ‘nobody’ was on the tarmac last week in Detroit to greet Vice President Harris for a campaign event in the Motor City despite unedited video and images from multiple news agencies showing otherwise. “
Yes, even Fox News knows what is real and what isn’t.
As for Donald Trump. . .
Consider this: He stands on the field during the annual Palmetto Bowl football game and somehow apparently images the crowd is there for him.
He cites a Harris rally in Detroit, attended by thousands (the Harris-Walz campaign estimated 15,000) and says that there was “NOBODY waiting.”
Clearly the man has some issues and to listen to him talking to a man who has some challenges when it comes to claims (e.g., in 2016 Musk claimed there would be an autonomous coast-to-coast drive of a Tesla by the end of 2017, which didn’t happen; in 2020 he said there would be Teslas capable of operating as autonomous robotaxis by the end of that year, which didn’t happen; in the Tesla Q2 earnings call in July he said, "I would be shocked if we cannot do it next year.” Yes, have full self-driving.) seems like nothing more than a Fake-a-Thon.
Not worth the time and effort.
TUE 8/13/24