Donald Trump has long been obsessed with Elvis Presley, even going so far as to tell an audience that people said he looked like Elvis. Now he's comparing his rallies with concerts by the late rockstar.
On his social media site, Trump shared a link to an article claiming that the former rocker couldn't pull in the same crowds that he could.
Screen capture of Donald Trump's Truth Social post
Elvis' largest crowd was about 60,000 people, WRKR reported. Trump's recent rally pulled in about 50,000 people, according to the Secret Service estimations. That wasn't enough for Trump, who falsely claimed he had 75,000.
During the era of Elvis concerts, 60,000 was a pretty hefty sum. The population of the United States was closer to 220 million when Elvis died and 216 million in 1975 when he had his biggest concert. By comparison, the U.S. population today is over 332 million people. Calculating the percentage of the population, Elvis had a much larger crowd per capita.
But according to the Elvis website Sony runs, the largest crowd for Elvis was 1.5 billion.
"Elvis' 1973 Aloha from Hawaii show had more viewership than the 1969 moon landing," the site explained.
When Trump was first inaugurated, however, then-press secretary Sean Spicer claimed that the new president had the largest inauguration crowd in history, "period!" It was given a "Pants on Fire" rating from Politifact at the time. Spicer now says he was focusing on people that were watching online as well as in person. Former President Barack Obama was the first president to be inaugurated in the era of web video. Neither Facebook, YouTube or Twitter had the live streaming option in 2009. Most who watched the Obama inauguration did so on television. He drew the top rating of all time at 37.8 million viewers. Trump's viewership was 30.7 million.
While visiting Elvis' hometown of Tupelo, Mississippi, in 2018, Trump told the audience that the two men were just alike.
“I shouldn’t say this. You’ll say I’m very conceited ’cause I’m not,” Trump said during a campaign event for Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. “But other than the blonde hair, when I was growing up, they said I looked like Elvis. You see that? Can you believe it? I always considered that a great compliment. I am thrilled to be back in Tupelo. I love Tupelo, home of thousands of hard-working American patriots and the proud birthplace of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis. Elvis! We love Elvis."
"We love Elvis, don’t we?” Trump continued. “In fact, we just gave Elvis the Medal of Freedom award at the White House."
Trump awarded Presley the Metal of Freedom posthumously on Nov. 16, 2018. The star allegedly died of a heart attack in 1977. He also awarded Babe Ruth and far-right Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia the award.
When Trump spoke about "The King," he said he was right there with him.
“At the end of a performance [by Presley], oftentimes the fans would go so wild — I was there once in Las Vegas at the Hilton,” Trump claimed, People Magazine said, citing the White House transcript. “The fans were ripping the place apart, screaming. They were going crazy.”
Trump then botched one of the most infamous Elvis sayings.
“And they announced, ‘Elvis has left the house. Elvis….’ If they didn’t say that, I think I’d still be there," Trump claimed. “Maybe I wouldn’t be here. But they had to do that. ‘Elvis has gone. Elvis has left.'"
The saying was, "Elvis has left the building."
