US President Donald Trump points during a campaign rally for Paxton at Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas, US, October 7, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump boasted about his crowd size and how he "filled up" the arena at his rally in San Antonio, Texas on Wednesday night — only for C-SPAN to pan the camera and reveal large numbers of empty seats in the upper rows.
"The fake news will take a picture of two empty seats, and they'll say Trump did not fill up — who the hell fills an arena like this for a midterm?" said Trump, gesturing around.
As the camera swept over the arena, Trump seemed to acknowledge the fact that many of the seats in the upper rows were empty, but had an excuse for it.
"What they do is that the upper rows, you'll see 'em, they sort of migrate downward," said Trump. "We max out every thing you've ever seen, there's never been anything like it."
Trump has long made obsessing over his crowd size a fixture of his speeches, going as far back as when he and members of his administration tried to inflate the number of people who attended his first inauguration.