It’s all about crowd size. Again. President Donald Trump is obsessed with the number of people who turn out at his events, so it comes as no surprise that Fox News is trying to protect the president’s fragile ego from the extremely low turnout at his inaugural event for the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.
The network, which critics call a mouthpiece for Trump propaganda, spent days hyping Trump’s Great American State Fair, which kicked off on the National Mall June 24, with a Trump campaign-style rally as the main attraction.
But by Thursday, Fox quietly dropped coverage amid a small turnout and an embarrassing mass exodus in the middle of Trump’s underwhelming speech, which of course should have been about the country and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but instead Trump made it all about himself.
NBC News estimated the crowd size at just over 1,000, with The Washington Post describing it this way: “the crowd thinly covered an area about the length of the National Museum of American History, smaller than some summer outdoor movie screenings.”
The Post also reported Trump “did not appear to enjoy the speech” and ended it in less than half an hour, begging people to turn out for his Fourth of July appearance.
“Please show up,” Trump implored Wednesday night. “Because if we have two empty seats, you know what’s going to happen, the fake news is going to say he didn’t fill out the arena.”
Trump Attempts Clean Up
Trump took to his Truth Social platform not once, but twice the following day, crowing that thousands of people had turned out for the event.
“The Crowd was incredible last night, packed to the brim — At least 45,000 people were there,” he falsely claimed before adding, “Everybody stayed right until the end of my Speech because they loved hearing about a truly successful America.”
Obviously, there are photos and video showing the exact opposite, but that didn’t stop him.
He took to social media later in the day to claim once again that thousands had turned out to see him.
“Last night’s Rally was packed — 45,000 people. July 4th will be a step beyond anything you’ve ever seen. The Military flyovers will be the best, EVER — The most planes, the newest planes, the fastest planes!” a disingenuous Trump bragged in the post.
A social media frenzy erupted with posters calling out Trump over his incessant lying.
“ALL WE EVER GET from ‘DJT’ is G A S L I G H T B U L L S- – T ‘L I E S’ – INCESSANT – NEVER-ENDING ‘DECEPTION’ I CAN’T F–ING STAND HIM caps on purpose,” an X user proclaimed.
‘Things Are Not Going Very Well’
Journalist and executive editor of The Bulwark Jonathan V. Last, known as JVL, talked with reporter Will Sommer on “Bulwark Takes,” a daily short-form audio and video podcast series, and put it this way.
“Here’s the thing, to have a guy like Trump standing there with a sparse crowd, with people wandering away ’cause they’re bored, insisting in his speech that we are beginning a new golden age of America, is itself proof that the end of the American empire is unfolding in front of us,” Last contends.
But Sommer summed it up a bit differently, remarking that Trump has had all kinds of problems with the “little things,” such as the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which turned green with algae and had to be redone, or placing a mock arch on a street in Washington modeled after the version Trump wants to build in honor of himself.
“You have the state fair. Many states are not participating,” Sommer pointed out.
“I mean all of these symbols, I mean it seems like things are not going very well,” he added.
Trump ended up speaking at the event Wednesday night because over the past month almost every act booked for the event dropped out amid the ongoing politicization of the nation’s milestone birthday festivities.
Oh, and it doesn’t help that Trump is one of the most unpopular presidents in modern times, with his approval rating hovering in the 30-percentile range.
