Former Republican President Donald Trump has been obsessed with crowd size since he first began campaigning for the 2016 election.
He's so triggered by his failure to draw the crowds of his predecessors and rivals that the phrase "alternative facts" was coined by a member of his administration to explain the many lies about the small crowds that attended his inauguration in comparison to those who showed up for Democratic President Barack Obama.
Now the Harris 2024 campaign account "Kamala HQ" is poking that sore spot after Trump posted a claim the media ignores his "100,000" person rallies.
And they're doing it on Truth Social, which is basically Trump's own social media site.
Trump first posted on his Truth Social platform Thursday morning:
"If Kamala has 1,000 people at a Rally, the Press goes 'crazy', and talks about how 'big' it was - And she pays for her 'Crowd'. When I have a Rally, and 100,000 people show up, the Fake News doesn’t talk about it, THEY REFUSE TO MENTION CROWD SIZE. The Fake News is the Enemy of the People!"
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
Former Trump administration member Stephanie Grisham called Trump's response proof he's panicking.
Choosing their own response, Kamala HQ posted photos of rallies held in the same arena—by Trump in late June and then by Harris this week—in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The post included Trump's own boastful post.
The Kamala HQ account also tagged Trump in their Truth Social caption:
"Same arena in Philly, @realDonaldTrump"
@KamalaHQ/Truth Social
The upper decks—even near the stage—are empty at Trump's rally, but full at Harris's.
According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, Trump drew just 4,000 people to his MAGA rally at Temple University's Liacouras Center in June. Harris drew an overflowing crowd Tuesday, filling the 10,000 seats of the Liacouras Center and the overflow room at nearby McGonigle Hall with an estimated total of 14,000 people per the Maine Morning Star.
Kamala HQ also shared their post on X and Threads captioned:
"Harris rally vs. Trump rally"
"Same arena in Philly"
And reposted it captioned:
"Yes, we posted this on Truth Social"
They also compared recent Michigan rally crowd sizes...
Truth Social/@KamalaHQ
...as well as Atlanta.
Truth Social/@KamalaHQ
People appreciated the direct response from Harris' campaign to Trump's latest lies about his own popularity.
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Trump seems to have good reason to panic.
A Reuters/Ipsos national poll published on Thursday showed Trump trailing Vice President Kamala Harris by five percentage points.
During his hastily called invitation-only press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, Trump lied when asked if he was "worried at all by the size of Harris' crowds. Trump claimed the press—and apparently photos and videos—are "dishonest" because his rallies were "10 times, 20 times, 30 times" bigger.
He later exaggerated even further by saying his January 6, 2021 rally—which incited the subsequent violent attack on the United States Capitol—exceeded the crowd at the August 28, 1963 civil rights March On Washington when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his I Have A Dream speech.
Trump told his hand-selected press conference attendees:
"In history, for any country, nobody's had crowds like I have. If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his great speech… and you look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd—we actually had more people."
The press didn't question Trump's ridiculous claim.
The March On Washington was attended by an estimated 250,000 people. An estimated 10,000 people attended Trump's Stop The Steal rally on January 6.
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@sadcommunistdog; @froglok/Bluesky