Former President Donald Trump railed against coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent rallies, accusing her of paying for the crowds she has attracted, without providing evidence.
“If Kamala has 1,000 people at a Rally, the Press goes ‘crazy,’ and talks about how ‘big’ it was – And she pays for her ‘Crowd,’” Trump groused on Truth Social Thursday.
Trump, 78, has long been famous for drawing monster, energetic crowds to his political rallies and has often fixated on his knack for packing stadiums and other venues.
Since her abrupt ascension, Harris, 59, has managed to pack arenas. Last month, her campaign claimed she filled the Georgia State University Convocation Center with about 10,000 people.
During her unveil of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate Tuesday at Temple University in Philadelphia, the campaign touted a draw of 14,000 people.
Then on Wednesday, some reports suggested she drew a boisterous crowd of almost 15,000 people to a hanger at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
Knowing how Trump feels about crowd sizes, the Harris-Walz campaign has begun needling and taunting him on that front.
The Post contacted the Trump campaign for evidence to back up his claim about Harris paying for her crowd sizes as well as the Harris campaign.
During the launch of his political career from the Trump Tower lobby in 2015, Trump’s team had paid some members of the cheering crowd to be there, according to multiple reports.
Specifically, the New York firm Extra Mile Casting was reportedly tapped and paid people about $50 apiece to spectate and support him.
Trump has also grumbled about media coverage of Harris, saying it has been too fawning toward her. He and running mate JD Vance have also begun taking aim at her for sparingly fielding questions from the press.
Vance took questions during his campaigning Wednesday and Trump scheduled a press conference in Mar-a-Lago Thursday as part of a bid to throw shade at her for staying away from the media.
Since President Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, Harris has given no interviews to reporters on the record.
“Donald Trump craves media attention, he’s not getting it, and so he is throwing tantrums online and today at his country club for the media,” Harris-Walz 2024 spokesperson Ammar Moussa chided in a statement about Trump’s forthcoming presser.
A litany of polls indicate that the race has grown much tighter now that Biden has dropped out and Harris has become the Democratic nominee.
Harris has a 0.8 percentage-point edge in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polling in a five-way national matchup. Prior to Biden dropping out, Trump had long led the RCP aggregate.
