President Donald Trump claimed on Monday night that somewhere between 10,000 and 35,000 people were in attendance for his rally in El Paso, Texas. But the city’s fire department is pushing back against that claim.
As the El Paso Times reports, Trump said during the rally that his campaign received permission to let 10,000 people inside the El Paso County Coliseum, which only holds 6,500 people at a time.
A fire department official confirmed to the paper that only 6,500 people were inside the stadium during the president’s rally, but added that the overall number of people could have been 10,000 people, counting people waiting outside. However, it said it did not track that number.
“If you would say, as an example, that tonight 69,000 people signed up to be here. Now the area holds 8,000–and thank you fire department–they got about 10 [thousand], thank you fire department, appreciate it,” the president said. “If you really want to see something go outside. Tens of thousands of people are watching screens outside.”
The president also made another attendance prediction when trying to discredit a rival rally by former Rep. Beto O’Rourke held in the city at the same time.
“A young man who’s got very little going for himself—except he’s got a great first name—he challenged us,” the president told the crowd. “So we have, let’s say 35,000 people here tonight, and he has 200 people, 300 people. Not too good. In fact, what I would do is say that may be the end of his presidential bid.”
O’Rourke has not announced whether or not he will enter the 2020 Democratic primary. But there is speculation he will make a decision in the coming weeks.
Bloomberg reported on Monday night that the El Paso police estimated that O’Rourke’s rally drew between 10,000 to 15,000 people. NBC News estimated that the crowd for the former congressman’s rally was around 7,000 or 8,000.
You can read all of the El Paso Times report here.
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