‘422,000 People!’ Trump Makes Wild Claim About Crowd Size at His July 4 Event

On Sunday, President Donald Trump revised his initial claim that 375,000 people gathered for the America 250 celebration on the National Mall before the crowd was forced to evacuate due to weather.

“We’re here, we’re here, we’re here. There’s no way we can be deterred. They estimated they had 375,000 people before everybody had to leave and they now have 150,000 people. It’s the craziest thing anyone’s ever seen,” Trump said during his speech that began after 11 p.m. Saturday.

Trump revised that number upward on Truth Social Sunday afternoon.

“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,” Trump wrote.

He continued:

When I heard that it was cancelled, I immediately overturned that decision, and waited a while for people to come back. Incredibly, at least 150,000 people returned, and it was an even more spectacular evening than it would have been as normalized! It showed work under pressure. Congratulations to the Secret Service and Law Enforcement on being able to get so many people back into the Arena in such rapid fashion! It was an amazing evening made even more spectacular by the fact that, immediately after the Great Fireworks ended, the rains came down, full blast!

Newsweek reported, “there is no independent evidence confirming the president’s figures,” adding that even if his initial figures were correct, “the crowd would have still been smaller than the one gathered for the Bicentennial in 1976, which The New York Times at the time reported being 500,000-people strong during the traditional parade only, mentioning official estimates.”

Crowd size has always been important to Trump, who has exaggerated actual numbers in the past. During last week’s Great American State Fair on the National Mall, Trump crowed about the “INCREDIBLE” crowds that flocked to Washington D.C., despite reports that the brutal heat led to underwhelming attendance.

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