A video showing former President Donald Trump‘s crowd size at a rally in New York has gone viral as it has made its way across social media on Friday.
Trump, the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, held a rally in Crotona Park, South Bronx, a Democratic borough of New York City on Thursday to drum up support ahead of November’s presidential election in which he is expected to face off with President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
However, the size of the crowd has drawn conflicting reports as Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung previously told Newsweek in a statement that 25,000 people attended the rally. Meanwhile, others have noted a smaller crowd size.
In a post to X, formerly Twitter, podcast host on MeidasTouch, Fred Wellman, shared a video from ABC7 Eyewitness News showing the zoomed out view of Trump’s rally.
“New York’s ABC7 Reporter @jimdolan7 was on the ground and they had a helicopter in the air to tell the real story of Trump’s ‘big’ rally in the south Bronx for the 11:00 news. The zoom out of Trump speaking and the real crowd size says it all. All they do is lie,” Wellman wrote.
The video, which has garnered over 610,000 views, shows reporter Jim Dolan’s report of the rally as he gives viewers a look at “a fair amount of empty space” at Crotona Park, while also noting “there are a lot of red hats in there.”
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s spokesperson and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation via email for comment.
Although it’s unclear the number of people at the rally on Thursday, according to The New York Times, which cited the New York Police Department (NYPD), the rally had a permit for 3,500 people. According to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Crotona Park is the largest park in the South Bronx and the sixth largest in the borough.
X account The Shallow State wrote on Thursday that the “size of the crowd was small,” adding to the conflicting reports.
In addition, attorney and Trump critic Ron Filipkowski noted a comparison to the overall population of New York City and wrote the “right-wing media can hype this Bronx rally all they want. In a city of over 8 million people Trump drew 4,000 tops. That’s with a lot of people from out of state.”
The former president garnered just 16 percent of the vote in the Bronx in the 2020 election, whereas Biden won north of 80 percent, according to the Associated Press. However, as Trump and Republicans have made gains with Black and Hispanic voters, his campaign and conservative supporters in New York are hopeful he will perform better in the borough and the state this time around. About 65 percent of Bronx residents are Hispanic and approximately 31 percent are Black.
Amid the rally, Trump told supporters of his potential plans for the city if he is reelected to the White House as he said he would support New York’s Democratic leaders.
“As soon as I get back into the Oval Office, I am going to pick up the phone and I’m going to call your mayor and your governor, and I’m going to say, ‘this is President Trump and I want to come back and help,'” said Trump, who was a lifelong New Yorker until he officially transferred his residency to Palm Beach, Florida, in 2019.
“You have a Democrat governor, you have a Democrat mayor and we are going to work with them, and we are going to get this state and this city at a level that it’s never seen before,” he said.
The former president’s rally comes ahead Trump and Biden’s first debate on June 27 hosted by CNN at the network’s studio in Georgia, a critical battleground state.
However, a second battle between the 2020 candidates remains unpopular with voters who have said in polls that they don’t want either candidate to get a second term. General election polling, meanwhile, has generally shown the two in a neck-and-neck race.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.