President Donald Trump defended the crowd size at his July 4th speech as he attempted to justify the smaller numbers. Videos from the National Mall showed empty seats during the president’s Saturday address celebrating America’s 250th anniversary, prompting a lengthy explanation from Trump a day later.
Donald Trump defends State Fair crowd
President Trump shared his version of the State Fair in a Truth Social post on Sunday, one day after images from the 250th anniversary celebration showed noticeable gaps in the audience.
He insisted that more than four hundred thousand people had packed the venue by early evening, only for lightning to scatter the National Mall crowd. “The Crowd at 7:05 in the evening was 422,000 people! All were forced to leave because of the weather, the event was cancelled, and everyone was gone because of lightning,” he wrote.
The evacuation order came roughly three hours before the scheduled start time. Trump stated that he stepped in to reverse the July 4th cancellation. He described the wait period as attendees slowly filtered back through security. “When I heard that it was cancelled, I immediately overturned that decision, and waited a while for people to come back,” he posted.
He estimated that around 150,000 people ultimately returned for the 11:15 p.m. speech. However, the re-entry process proved difficult. The BBC reported that thousands of attendees found themselves stuck outside the grounds for an extended stretch.
Donald Trump’s fixation with crowd sizes has become a familiar feature of his public life. Last month, aerial photographs from his Great American State Fair speech showed scattered seating and attendees walking out mid-address.
The president responded by describing that event as “packed to the brim” with 45,000 supporters. It was later reported that the commander-in-chief was angry upon seeing the aerial image from the State Fair. Insiders described him as “livid” over the visual evidence of a thin audience.
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory.
