Politics

FACT CHECK: Did Trump Claim 40,000 People Attended His Recent Michigan Rally?

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An image shared on Facebook more than 600 times claims President Donald Trump said at his recent Michigan rally, “We have 40,000 people in here tonight, with thousands waiting outside to get in but they … won’t show it to you.”

Verdict: False

There’s no record of Trump making this statement. It appears in neither the transcript nor the footage of his recent Michigan rally.

Fact Check:

Trump held a campaign rally at the Kellogg Arena in Battle Creek, Michigan, Dec. 18, the same night the House voted to impeach him on counts of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The Facebook post, which has been shared more than 600 times, claims Trump said there were “40,000 people in [Kellogg Arena] tonight, with thousands waiting outside to get in but they … won’t show it to you.” Similar claims have been circulating on Twitter.

However, there’s no record of him making the statement attributed to him in the Facebook post. The quote about 40,000 people supposedly attending the rally appears in neither the footage nor the transcript of the event.

The Daily Caller News Foundation didn’t find any media reports crediting him with the claim either.

While he didn’t make the claim that 40,000 people attended the event, Trump did comment on the size of the rally’s crowd.

“And by the way, 20,000 people outside had to leave,” said Trump. “You know? It’s so cold outside we told them, ‘Don’t worry about a screen, go home, go home and watch.’ But we had, this is about a 5,500 seat arena. And I said to my people, ‘Why so small?'”

Kellogg Arena has a maximum capacity of 6,200 people, according to its website. A local journalist, Leon Hendrix, reported that, per the Calhoun County sheriff, more than 2,000 people were in the overflow area outside the arena.

Trump has claimed that media outlets intentionally don’t cover the crowd size at his rallies in the past, according to PolitiFact.