Donald Trump’s latest boast about the crowds at his campaign events backfired when he claimed that “no one” leaves his rallies early – just as a supporter got up and exited the stands directly behind him.
The unfortunate timing occurred while Trump was speaking at a campaign event in Rocky Mount, in the swing state of North Carolina on Wednesday.
“Everybody watches our rallies, everybody loves our rallies, we never have an empty seat,” Trump told the crowd, before he did an impersonation of opponent Kamala Harris.
“They try and demean us like that horrible, horrible person that I debated when she said ‘and people leave early.’ Nobody leaves early.”
At that very moment, a rallygoer donning a black t-shirt featuring the Republican’s mugshot got up out of his seat and left.
“If I saw them leaving early, you know what I would say?” Trump continued, appearing not to notice what was happening behind him.
“‘Ladies and gentlemen thank you very much,’ and I’d leave,” he said, adding: “But I’ve never had to do that. We have the greatest rallies in the world, there’s never an empty seat, and nobody leaves early.”
Trump has been fixated on crowd sizes throughout this election cycle, with Harris’s comment during the September 10 debate appearing to have gotten under his skin.
On Tuesday night, more than 75,000 people flocked to hear Harris’s closing argument to voters at the Ellipse in Washington DC, according to her campaign.
If the early estimate is correct, this means Harris’s event drew about 22,000 more people than Trump’s rally on the same spot on January 6 2021 – where he urged around 53,000 supporters to “fight like hell” in the moments before the Capitol riot.
Trump, who routinely exaggerates his crowd size, once wildly claimed the Jan 6 rally brought in as many attendees as Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech near the Lincoln Memorial on August 28 1968.
Last week, Trump also claimed 29,000 supporters flocked to see him work the fryer at McDonald’s for a campaign stunt on October 20, but locals were quick to point out his numbers appeared to be inflated.
“We had 29,000 people surrounding it. We weren’t sure if we were able to get out,” Trump boasted.
While large crowds of people did line the surrounding streets of the McDonald’s in Feasterville-Trevose, Bucks County, the branch Trump visited is located within the Lower Southampton Township, which had a population of 20,427 in 2023, according to the US Census Bureau.
Bucks County journalist Tom Sofield reported for local news outlet LevittownNow.com that the crowds were closer to “several thousand,” adding that Trump had also previously claimed 25,000 people turned out to see him.
