|
Listen To This Story
 |
It’s another beautiful day in West Palm Beach, and somebody who lives there, e.g., in a building officially appraised at $18 million, could spend Sunday golfing, at the pool, or reading classified documents in his bathroom.
If that person happens to be running for president, he could also do some fundraising or think about how to recalibrate his floundering campaign.
Donald Trump is apparently choosing to do none of these things.
Instead, he is obsessing over crowd sizes.
When he was the biggest draw on the political scene, this is something that gave the former president a lot of joy.
Sure, he routinely lies about the number of people who come to watch him speak. Perhaps the most egregious example came just last week, when it became clear that the thing that bothers Trump most about January 6 is that he believes more people attended the rally that turned violent and resulted in the storming of the US Capitol.
However, even without the outlandish exaggerations, this was once an area in which he was “best.”
No longer — and that seems to bother him more than having lost the lead in this year’s presidential race.
Photographic evidence shows that Vice President Kamala Harris is now able to fill the same venues with more people than Trump, a fact her campaign has exploited with social media posts that are clearly meant to get under the former president’s skin.
It’s working.
“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport?” he wrote in a Truth Social post that also included an image that allegedly proves that, contrary to all evidence, Harris was not greeted by thousands of enthusiastic supporters. “There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!”
Trump claims that a maintenance worker “turned in” Harris, and that the reflection from Air Force Two “proves his theory.”
However, there is plenty of evidence that this is yet another MAGA conspiracy theory, such as these videos from The Detroit News.
Of course, an absence of facts has never stopped Trump.
“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,” he stated. “This is the way the Democrats win Elections, by CHEATING.”
That seems like a pretty silly thing to say. After all, Trump drew significantly larger crowds than Joe Biden and he still lost in 2020 by millions of votes.
“She should be disqualified because the creation of a fake image is ELECTION INTERFERENCE,” he ranted. “Anyone who does that will cheat at ANYTHING!”
Funny that he should mention that.
After all, Trump’s presidency began with him lying about the size of his inauguration crowd. He not only made then-press secretary Sean Spicer (and others) lie on his behalf, but the National Park Service was also directed to edit photos of the event.
However, that probably proves his point: Someone who will inflate crowd sizes will resort to anything… even staging a coup.
