On Thursday, former President Donald Trump claimed that the crowd he addressed on January 6, 2021, was the largest he’s ever spoken to, and lamented the lack of photographic evidence to substantiate his claim. He also argued that those arrested after the Capitol riot were being treated “very unfairly.”
During a news conference, Trump was questioned about the peaceful transfer of power following the November election. He asserted that there was a peaceful transfer when he lost in 2020, despite his legal challenges to the results and ongoing false claims of election fraud.
When asked specifically about January 6, 2021, Trump defended his rally outside the White House, which preceded the violence at the Capitol. He criticized the treatment of those involved in the riot, comparing it unfavorably to other incidents of civil unrest where there were casualties.
“I think the people that — if you look at Jan. 6, which a lot of people aren’t talking about very much, those people were treated very harshly when you compare them to other things that took place in this country where a lot of people were killed,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago estate. “Nobody was killed on January 6. But those people were treated very unfairly.”
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Trump then claimed that his January 6 crowd was the largest he had ever addressed, comparing it to Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.
“The biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken before was that day,” he continued. “And I’ll tell you, it’s very hard to find a picture of that crowd. You see the picture of a small number of people relatively going to the Capitol, but you never see the picture of the crowd, the biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken and I’ve spoken to the biggest crowds, nobody has spoken to crowds bigger than me.”
He continued: “… If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours. Same real estate. Same everything. Same number of people, if not, we had more. We actually had more people. They said I had 25,000, and he had 1 million people. And I’m OK with it, because I liked Dr. Martin Luther King.”
Trump’s refusal to accept the 2020 election results led to the violent Capitol breach on January 6, when his supporters clashed with law enforcement in an attempt to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Hundreds have been charged for their roles in the riot, and Trump himself faces criminal charges in Washington, D.C., and Georgia for his attempts to overturn the election results.
Trump has consistently downplayed the violence of January 6, referring to the rioters as “patriots” and “warriors,” and has suggested he might pardon some of those charged if he is reelected.
Watch the clip below:
I'm beyond words. Shameful would be an understatement.
Donald Trump just bragged that he had a bigger crowd on January 6 than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had at the March on Washington.
January 6 was one of the darkest moments in American history, and MLK's ‘I Have a Dream’… pic.twitter.com/Cy4shpNW73
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorresNY) August 8, 2024
