Well, he wasn’t trying to control the crowd as much as he was trying to control any messaging about people leaving the event early.
Rally size is something that is important to Trump — so important that he became agitated during a Sept. 10 presidential debate when Democratic rival Kamala Harris bluntly said that “people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”
In Walker, Trump attempted to explain why rallygoers seemed to be leaving his event.
“The people that you see leaving? Because nobody ever leaves,” the former president said. “And when they do, I finish up quick.”
Trump then suggested that his staffers were to blame for the apparent departures, and claimed that people were actually lining up in the back for photos since he couldn’t pose for pictures earlier.
“These stupid people that are with me sometimes, they say, ‘Come on back,’” Trump said. “Thirty people, they get up and they go back. And they’re all lined up in the back waiting for me to take a picture because I couldn’t do it before.”
But Trump’s explanation for people leaving his rally wasn’t helped by the Harris campaign sharing purported video of (checks notes) people leaving his rally.
Not surprisingly, social media users soon mocked the former president for his questionable claim.