President Donald Trump, forever the showman, although critics say “conman” is more accurate, is crowing about the attendance at his Republican convention.
There’s just one problem. Video from the strange midterm GOP gathering underway in Dallas this week paints a very different picture.
But Trump has never been one to let optics get in the way, and he took to social media Thursday to brag about the vast crowds.
He called it a “major, sold out hit, far bigger, better, and more important than anyone thought possible” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“It was really something, streaming all over the place, and really big numbers, despite going up against the NFL,” Trump astonishingly claimed even though journalists covering the so-called “Trump-a-palooza” reported on large numbers of empty sections and seats inside the 20,000-seat arena.
In fact, the day before the start, event organizers began giving away tickets, trying to fill the stadium and texting “FREE TICKETS” to anyone who would bite.
The scramble to fill seats became an awkward backdrop for an event Trump has promoted as a massive show of Republican strength. At least 45 GOP candidates and lawmakers said in the days before the event they weren’t attending, and even First Lady Melania Trump skipped the gathering.
The list of absences raised questions about how much enthusiasm the party has for a convention designed to rally Republicans before the November midterm elections.
None of that mattered to Trump. In his post Thursday, he kept boasting about the turnout on the first night, then made an even more outrageous claim.
“The overall numbers beat the NFL. The Arena, which was really nice, beat its own attendance records. The place was packed! There were thousands of people outside who couldn’t get in. Screens were provided,” he insisted.
The NFL has not released official viewership numbers for its season opener, but reporters at the venue saw no crowds outside and plenty of empty seats inside. Plus there’s video to prove it.
Progressive political commentator and media influencer Harry Sisson posted a clip on X showing how empty the arena’s upper tiers were.
“Trump’s convention in Dallas has hundreds of empty seats as he claims it’s ‘packed.’ How embarrassing,” Sisson wrote.
Video posts from other reporters show the same thing.
Senior reporter at WFAA, Jason Whitely, commented along with a video, “Night 1 of the Republican National Convention in Dallas, and the American Airlines Center is not at capacity as President Trump speaks. Empty seats in different parts of the stadium.”
Other reporters verified it too.
“In his speech at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas, Trump touted that the convention center was packed. This is the view of the arena from the floor: as you can see, there are areas that are clearly empty — the American Airlines Center is not close to filled,” Washington Sun politics and policy reporter Oriana González pointed out.
Social media erupted in mirth, calling out Trump and accusing him of “gaslighting” Americans.
“Look at that crowd!” an X user joked above a repost of another message showing a thin crowd and captioned, “Trump’s gaslighting on full display to the few people who are still there. He’s literally trying to convince a half-empty stadium that they are filled. And most of them probably believed him.”
Poster Rabid Duckus agreed, “Not sold out, and they couldn’t even give away the free tickets.
This commenter stated the obvious, “Those lies are self-evidently and provably a load of BS. This insane madman can’t even know when to lie.”
More commenters piled on in glee.
“More lies and gaslighting by Trump,” an X user proclaimed.
A Threads user summed it up this way: “He thinks what he is saying is true. This is beyond lying. This is delusion.”
Two recent polls show Trump’s approval rating at a record low.
A Financial Times/Focaldata poll shows just a 33 percent approval rating, his lowest since May and down three points from last month, Forbes reported.
The latest NBC News poll shows Trump at 36 percent approval, a record low during his second term.
