Again, Trump said nobody left his speech. Again, that wasn’t true
President Donald Trump sent on social media on Thursday about the issue. speech “Everyone stayed there until the end of my talk because they loved hearing about a truly successful America,” he said the day before the start of the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C.
WRONG. Trump’s previous categorical statements that “nobody would leave their event” until he was done speaking were untrue, and his specific claim that no one would leave until he was done with this particular event was also patently false.
A. Video published by The BulwarkA media outlet critical of Trump showed dozens of people walking out of the event about 17 minutes To the President’s 28-minute speech. CNN senior correspondent Donie O’Sullivan, who was there interviewing participantsHe says he observed hundreds of people heading towards the exits as Trump’s speech continued.
There are not many notable reasons for such departures. O’Sullivan said some people told him they had come to watch the pre-speech overpasses with military jets. The crowd at an officially nonpartisan event commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary, held on the pedestrian-friendly National Mall in the Democratic-dominated capital, was likely made up of more casual spectators than at a typical Trump rally in one of his rural strongholds. People have jobs, families, and obligations. And it’s absolutely true -most Most of the crowd remained until Trump finished his remarks.
But Trump was the one to claim that “everyone else” was staying until he was done. This did not happen.
So why did the president say this? To be fair, it’s unclear whether he noticed the people leaving or saw the Bulwark video. But it’s been a long time Serial liar about trivial matters and one sherry exaggeration both the crowds it attracts and its general popularity. Because he has spent years trying to cultivate an image of unique appeal, he has proven to be extremely sensitive to facts that puncture that image, such as accurate observations that some people are willing to turn their backs on some of his words.
A long history of false claims that no one left early
Trump’s post Thursday revived a statement he made repeatedly during the 2024 presidential campaign.
After his opponent in 2024, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. in question “People are starting to leave their rallies early because of fatigue and boredom,” Trump said in his televised debate. “People are not leaving my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.” He later returned to this point unprompted at his own 2024 campaign events, saying: Arizona And North Carolina “no one leaves early” and Michigan “To be honest, no one does this.”
He wasn’t right then either.
Detroit Free Press noted At an event held in Michigan in the fall of 2024, it was said that “the crowd visibly thinned as the 85-minute speech continued.” New York Times noted “Within five minutes of the start of his speech, an audience began moving toward the exit, a steady flight that never quite subsided,” he said at an event in North Carolina days before Election Day 2024. Washington Post wrote a story He talked about the fact that “dozens of people” were leaving early from many Trump events in 2024, noting that “hundreds if not thousands of people” left one in Atlanta, for example. (The Post interviewed a variety of early school leavers across the country; they expressed everything from a desire to beat traffic to a dog waiting at home for work the next morning to poor audio quality and sometimes dissatisfaction with conversations.) The Guardian reported At Trump’s fall 2024 event in Georgia, “about three in 10 people” left before the end of the speech, where they arrived late.
Of course, none of these early departures prevented him from winning the election.
Trump, who is often adept at voicing false claims even after they have been debunked, struggled to articulate them on at least one occasion. At a rally in Michigan in September 2024, in question“The people you see”… then he caught himself and said, “Because no one is leaving”… but then he added, “And when they leave, I finish quickly, believe me”… but then he suggested that everyone who got up from their seats would line up to take a post-speech backstage photo with him.
This is not true, as the Trump monologue makes clear.
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