Former President Donald Trump was mocked for emphasizing the size of the crowd at Vice President Kamala Harris’ first rally during her campaign event in North Carolina on Wednesday.
Harris, who launched her presidential campaign on Sunday, held her first rally as the presumptive Democratic nominee near Milwaukee on Tuesday. Multiple media outlets reported that the vice president drew a crowd of more than 3,000 people as she focused her message on a campaign that is “focused on the future,” while Trump is focused “on the past.”
Trump criticized Harris’ rally at his event in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday, including comparing the size of the crowds. At one point in the evening, he told cheering supporters that Harris’ campaign had “worked hard to draw a crowd,” while his campaign has had crowds of up to “70,000 people.” Trump has also repeatedly complained that the “fake news media” never reports the size of his rallies.
“If I ever had a crowd like Kamala did – assuming she had 2,000 people, which I don’t think she did – but if I ever had a crowd, they’d run the headlines, ‘Trump is done, he’s done, it’s not working for him anymore,'” Trump said later that evening.
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Videos of Trump’s comments circulated on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday night, and some users mocked his claims, including online personality Ed Krassenstein, who is often critical of the former president.
“Trump is having a major meltdown at his rally, crying over the Kamala Harris crowd,” Krassenstein wrote. “He just spent several minutes saying he got credit for being in the crowd and never gets credit for it. He’s a man-baby. You can tell he’s really pissed.”
The Acyn account also shared a clip from Trump’s rally, writing alongside the video: “The media coverage of the crowd size has clearly gotten to Trump as he continues to rail against the size of Kamala Harris’ crowd.”
Another user, Denison Barb, responded to a clip of the Trump event posted by Acyn, writing: “Same old Trump. Just insults and nothing about the issues.”
Trump’s statements about crowd sizes have come under scrutiny before. After a rally in the South Bronx in May, the former president’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, said Newsweek Trump drew a crowd of 25,000 people. The rally, however, was only allowed for 3,500 spectators.
A similar problem arose after Trump’s rally in Las Vegas last month. While the former president claimed at least 20,000 people attended the rally in 100-degree temperatures, county officials said Newsweek that the venue where the gathering took place has a maximum capacity of 3,000 people.
On Wednesday, Trump singled out his May rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, where a city spokesman told The Associated Press that an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people attended. Newsweek It had previously been reported that the estimate was likely overestimated.
Newsweek emailed the Trump campaign Wednesday night seeking comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
