President Trump told supporters that a rally addressed by former President Barack Obama in Detroit, Michigan, was "empty" during his own rally in Georgia.
Obama was in Michigan to support Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is in a close fight with Republican Mike Rogers, and his party’s gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson.
Trump’s comments are the latest in a long line comparing his crowd sizes against those of various rivals, and in particular Obama’s, showing the president’s continued interest in this topic.
Though the venue was relatively small, Obama’s rally in Cass Technical High School's gym had a good attendance, according to photographs and video shared on social media.
Newsweek contacted Cass Technical High School by email, along with Obama’s office via press inquiry form, for comment outside of regular office hours. The White House press office referred Newsweek back to Trump’s comments when contacted.
During his own rally in Perry, Georgia, on Saturday Trump said: "You know I saw Barack Hussein Obama was in Michigan and the place was empty. And they were saying ‘oh this is a large crowd coming the people are tricking through’ – they don’t talk about my crowds, they never talk about them."
Trump has a long record of including Obama’s middle name when mentioning the former president, in what critics argue is an attempt to make him sound more Islamic.
Referring to El-Sayed by his middle name Trump added: "And now he’s making a speech for Mohammed today and a massive crowd, a massive crowd has shown up. Where are they? They never talk about my crowd. You know we talk about crowd size. I remember Bernie Sanders he used to get big crowds. He would get like 900 to 1,000 people. I get 35, 40 thousand. They say ‘Bernie Sanders spoke before massive crowd’ and Donald Trump was in town also by the way. I had 40,000 he’d have like 90."
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What Photographs and Video Show
Video shared on X by Molly Ploofkins, a commentator with 164,000 followers on the platform, appeared to show the gymnasium where Obama delivered his speech was packed, though the venue was smaller than the stadiums where both Trump and Obama have previously held rallies.
According to Ploofkins, Obama’s rally had both a large in-person and overflow crowd, and she included a photograph showing what appeared to be a packed auditorium for the latter.
Farrukh, a progressive commentator who posts about American and British politics, also posted a video purportedly taken from the stage during Obama’s speech on Saturday which showed a packed venue.
According to the Michigan Bridge, a local media outlet, Obama’s rally was attended by "a crowd of more than 4,300 people."
At the event Obama described November’s midterm elections as a potential "circuit breaker" and the "last best chance to at least rein in some of the foolishness" from the second Trump administration.
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Trump Rally Size Interest
In January 2017 Trump said the crowd at his first presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. looked like "a million-and-a half people" with his then press secretary Sean Spicer claiming it was the largest inauguration audience in American history.
However photographs shared on social media appeared to show a larger attendance at Obama’s 2009 inauguration. A study by FactCheck.org, an independent body, said: "Side-by-side photos of the 2017 inauguration crowds and 2009 inauguration crowds on the National Mall show a noticeable difference, with 2009’s crowds filling up more of the space, from the perspective of the Washington Monument looking toward the Capitol."
In 2024 Trump said the attendance at his January 6 2021 Stop the Steal rally, which ended in his supporters storming Congress in a failed bid to stop the 2020 election results being certified, had a larger attendance than Martin Luther King’s 1963 March on Washington. The U.S. Census has estimated this event, which included the famed ‘I have a dream’ speech, was attended by around 200,000 people.
Trump also accused the Kamala Harris campaign of using AI to make a photograph of her crowd look larger, though an investigation by ABC News looking at the metadata concluded this was false.
Michigan Polling
A poll of 1,185 likely Michigan voters conducted over October 15 to 18 put El-Sayed ahead of Rogers by two points, with 50 percent of the vote against his Republican rival's 48 percent.
Similarly an InsiderAdvantage survey of 1,200 likely voters in the state, over October 9-10, had El-Sayed ahead by 48 percent to 46 percent.
On Wednesday a polling model produced by Nate Silver, based on recent polls, gave El-Sayed a three percentage point lead in the Michigan senate battle.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and Trevor Davies