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Louise Thomas
Editor
The Daily Show host has destroyed Donald Trump’s wild claim that the crowd of supporters who flocked to see him speak on January 6 rivaled the crowd that turned out to hear Martin Luther King Jr’s iconic “I have a dream” speech during the March on Washington.
On Thursday, Trump held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, as his campaign seeks to try to grab the spotlight from Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
During the lie-filled briefing, Trump made a series of false and wild claims – with one in particular raising eyebrows: his boast he has drawn in crowds comparable to MLK Jr.
“I’ve spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody has spoken to bigger crowds than me,” Trump claimed.
The former president then compared MLK Jr’s infamous “I Have a Dream” speech to his speech on 6 January 2021, just before his supporters stormed the US Capitol.
“When he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything. You look at it and you look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd – we actually had more people,” he claimed.
MLK Jr’s iconic speech during the 1963 March on Washington drew in an estimated 250,000 people.
By contrast, an estimated 53,000 people attended Trump’s speech on January 6 2021, according to the House Select Committee investigation.
Harris and Walz meanwhile have been enjoying the wave of their campaign, filling venues to capacity across the country. More than 12,000 people attended their first joint event in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
Trump’s wild boast came about when a reporter brought up the large crowds that Harris is drawing in to her campaign events.
“Oh give me a break,” he fumed.
On Thursday night’s The Daily Show, Michael Kosta pulled no punches saying that “Donald Trump hasn’t been having the best time lately”, quipping that Trump was “so mad” with the question, saying: “All right man, look, just tell us how big your crowds are and try not to be weird about it.”
Kosta then tore into Trump’s wild claims about his crowd – but offered him something of a comparison he could make with MLK Jr.
“No, no, no. hold on, all right? Let’s be careful comparing yourself to Martin Luther King here,” he said.
“I know you were both investigated by the FBI but that’s about it. Do not try to say that you were more popular,” he added, making reference to Trump’s legal issues as the first president ever to be charged with a federal crime.
The late-night show host continued to mock Trump for the comparison.
“Just to sum up, Trump was asked about Kamala’s crowd size, and his answer ended up being, I’m better than MLK,” said Kosta.
“I mean, probably not the best answer but it could have been worse.”
Pointing to the former president’s controversial claim that Harris recently “happened to turn Black”, Kosta said: “Trump could have been like, ‘And out of nowhere, MLK decided he was black. When did that happen?’”
At the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in Chicago on July 31, Trump made racially-charged comments about Harris and questioned her heritage, sparking a huge backlash and accusations of racism.
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