'They're not showing up': CNN fact checker blows up Trump rant about missing MAGA fans
April 25, 2024
Upon arrival at the Manhattan courthouse where he is facing 34 felony counts related to election interference in the 2016 election, Donald Trump ran to the cameras and went on a long rant, including raging that his followers are being blocked from showing up to support him.
That led CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale to point out that the former president was lying almost non-stop.
In a long and meandering monologue, Trump alleged there is a conspiracy against him, claimed gas in California is now $7.60 a gallon and insisted the streets outside the courtroom were blocked off so pro-Trump supporters were kept out of sight of the press.
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After touching on the campus protests over the events in Gaza, Trump argued, "You have riots at all the universities. The only place that's locked down is this courthouse because they don't want any supporters here, they don't want MAGA here, they don't want anybody in this. This thing is locked down like a buttoned-up vest and it shouldn't be."
"If they did the same lockdown at Columbia, and NYU, and the colleges and universities please you'd have no problem whatsoever, but there you could put tents up," he continued. "You can stay as long as you want. But this courthouse is locked down, there's not a person within five blocks and they have more police here."
After he walked away, CNN's Dale was asked about the Trump rant after a smiling Anderson Copper prompted, "I mean I don't even know where to begin."
"Yeah. that's a constant challenge," Dale replied. "Only Donald Trump could bring a crowd size lie to a criminal trial. He keeps saying this entire area is locked down. He said there's not a person within five blocks — that is categorically untrue."
"There was a designated protest zone right across the street at a park, literally right across the street from the courthouse. And the fact is that very few, just a handful of pro-Trump demonstrators have shown up. They're not being prevented from going there by police as he claimed on social media."
He later added, "Let me just add the courthouse is open to the public. If Trump's supporters want to attend the trial, they can go into the courtroom if they line up early enough, you can take a taxi, an Uber, or your own car to the front of the courthouse.
"It is not fully locked down, so he's saying this to suggest that's why we don't have this massive pro-Trump demonstration — my people can't get close.
"They can get close and they are not showing up."
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