El Paso fire department says Trump’s crowd size claims were false

The El Paso Fire Department on Monday denied that President Trump had received special permission to fit 10,000 people into an arena for his campaign rally in the city. 

Enrique Aguilar, fire public information officer, told the El Paso Times that Trump received no special treatment and that 6,500 people attended the rally at the El Paso County Coliseum. 

{mosads}Aguilar added that the crowd size may have been 10,000 when considering the crowd outside the arena. But he said the fire department did not specifically track those figures. 

Trump on Monday night held a rally in the border city of El Paso, Texas, where he continued to call for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He said at one point “69,000 people signed up to be here.”

“Now the arena holds 8,000,” he added. “And thank you, fire department. They got in about 10,000. Thank you, fire department. Appreciate it.”

Trump later claimed that there were 35,000 people at the rally while comparing his to the one former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) was headlining across town. 

“A young man who’s got very little going for himself except he’s got a great first name. He challenged us. So we have, let’s say 35,000 people tonight, and he has, say, 200 people, 300 people,” Trump said, before predicting that the media would not acknowledge the disparity.

“Not too good. In fact, what I would do is I would say that may be the end of his presidential bid.”

Between 7,000 and 8,000 people attended the march and rally opposing Trump on Monday, according to NBC News. Bloomberg News reported that O’Rourke’s rally drew between 10,000 and 15,000 people.

O’Rourke said during a speech that his hometown was “safe not because of walls, but in spite of walls.”