Trump out-Trumped himself again by massively overestimating the size of his El Paso rally

Ever since his inauguration when he accused the media of lying about the size of the crowd, Donald Trump has earned a reputation for massively overestimating his audience numbers.

But last night during his rally in Texas, Trump managed to out-Trump himself by claiming at one point that the crowd was more than three times bigger than official estimates. Far beyond the maximum capacity of the El Paso County Coliseum venue he was speaking in which claims to hold 6,500 people seated, plus an additional 4,500 people standing.

Referring to Beto O’Rourke’s rival rally taking place less than a mile away on the same night, Trump said he had been challenged by “a young man who's got very little going for himself except he's got a great first name”.

He added:

So we have 35,000 people tonight. And he has 200 people, 300 people – not too good.

That may be the end of his presidential bid.

Trump later thanked the fire department for getting 10,000 people in the El Paso County Coliseum, and said “tens of thousands of people are watching the screens outside”.

But an El Paso Fire Department public information officer told the El Paso Times that Trump’s claim was incorrect.

Officer Enrique Aguilar said that the El Paso County Coliseum where Trump was speaking holds about 6,500 people.

Aguilar added that "it might be 10,000 with the people outside" total, but the Fire Department did not track the number of people outside.

People on Twitter were quick to point out that Trump had completely overestimated the size of the crowd.

An O'Rourke spokesman said about 8,000 attended the counter-rally, while the Texas Tribune estimated at least 7,000 went.

But Bloomberg journalist Jennifer Epstein said the number was more like 10-15,000.

​However, the El Paso Police Department told the El Paso Times that officers had made no official estimates.

Looks like Trump isn’t as great with numbers as he claims.

HT El Paso Times

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