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Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke October 13, 2022

No, Trump’s rally wasn’t canceled because of poor attendance

If Your Time is short

  • A recent "pro-Trump rally" in Washington, D.C., was organized by supporters, not Trump, and was scantly attended. But it wasn’t canceled. 
 

Former President Donald Trump is known to brag about and sometimes inflate the number of people in the crowd at his rallies. News photos show big crowds at recent-days rallies in Arizona and Nevada.

But two recent Facebook posts swing in the opposite direction, claiming that his supporters abandoned him at an event.

"Trump rally just got shut down after no one shows up," read one Facebook post from Oct. 8. 

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook.)

A video in the post reveals that the event in question was not a rally featuring Donald Trump, but one thrown by his supporters. 

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The video shows an Oct. 7 Daily Beast story about a "pro-Trump rally" on the Capitol grounds that day attended by "a mere 27 individuals." The event nevertheless went on, according to the story. 

Looking for reports that recent rallies that Trump appeared at were shut down, we found only old news coverage. A 2016 Politico story, for example, told the story of a planned Chicago rally that was called off amid safety concerns as protesters gathered outside.

We rate the claim that Trump’s rally was recently shut down False.

 

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No, Trump’s rally wasn’t canceled because of poor attendance

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