The Bronx — Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has told multiple news outlets he gathered a crowd of supporters in The Bronx Thursday night that is more than five times the number reported by the New York City Police Department.
While outlets Fox News and Daily Mail say his campaign estimate 25,000 people showed up to Crotona Park to attend the “President Trump in The Bronx” rally, the NYPD press office told Raw Story just 3,400 tickets were booked.
That number tallies with the 3,500 estimate shared by officers who patrolled the Bronx park.
“That’s it?” a surprised cop said when heard the NYPD Aviation Unit’s estimate.
The crowds did not consist of MAGA followers alone. They were joined by Trump protesters who booed the former president’s motorcade and taunted supporters with chants of “loser.”
North of Trump’s rally, local officials and unions organized a “Trump Isn’t Welcome in the Bronx” counter rally.
Fox News reports that Trump’s campaign originally put the estimate at 3,500 but upped the number after the event.
“Those numbers appeared to also include those lined up outside the event – who waited hours for a shot at getting inside even after the event began,” the report notes.
How the campaign arrived at the number is not explained.
But the Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell reported Thursday night that moments before the former president was slated to appear a line of about 1,000 people stood outside the official rally space.
An hour later, as Trump was still speaking when Lowell made a follow-up report:
“Trump’s rally had a max capacity limit, so maybe a thousand are still outside the Secret Service perimeter more than an hour later — though a steady stream of people is now entering… to replace the steady stream of people leaving.”
Trump campaign estimates have recently been thrown into question after a Salon analyst noticed stark discrepancies between their tally and video footage of a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey earlier this month.
While the Associated Press put the number at up to 100,000 people, the keen-eyed reporter later found estimates that the beach space reserved could only accommodate 40,000 and video of the crowd did not appear to match the number shared by the city.
