Donald Trump boasted that the Iowa State Fair had a “record crowd” on Saturday when he visited for a campaign stop. “It’s a real honor to be here. We have a record that was set. The record is the largest crowd they’ve ever had and I can see that because you can’t get any more people here. I’m very honored by it, tremendous thing,” Trump told reporters during a brief press conference. “It’s a beautiful day in Iowa. There’s a record crowd. They’ve never had anything even close so I’m very happy by it.” But there wasn’t a record crowd, and the Iowa State Fair has had better turnouts in the past—let alone “anything even close.” It’s unclear where Trump got his figures from, however according to KCCI and the Des Moines Register, Saturday drew 118,286 people to the state’s fairgrounds in Des Moines. That’s 5,000 more than Day 3 of last year’s fair, but not even close to the all-time record of 127,277 set on Day 3 of 1991. Hawking false attendance numbers is the oldest play in Trump’s political book, though, calling back to his first ever presidential lie: the size of his inauguration crowd in 2017.
President @realDonaldTrump stops for a few brief remarks as he walks through the Iowa State Fair grounds.
