Trump claims 'Stop the Steal' rally had more people than MLK Jr's 'I Have a Dream' speech

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday unexpectedly claimed that his "Stop the Steal" rally, hours before the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill, had the same amount, or more people than Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. 

Official estimates claim that Trump's speech was just a fifth of the size of King's, with 53,000 people in attendance for Trump compared to 250,000 people for King, according to NBC News. King's iconic speech took place on the National Mall.

Trump admitted that estimates claim he had a smaller crowd, but indicated that he did not agree with the assessment when comparing pictures of the audiences. 

“Nobody has spoken to crowds bigger than me,” Trump said at a news conference at Mar-a-Lago. “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."

He later stated: "When you look at the exact same picture and everything is the same ... and you look at the picture of my crowd ... we actually had more people."

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) slammed the comparison in a post on social media, claiming that it was false and posted images from the two events side-by-side.

"Donald Trump just said that he had a bigger crowd on January 6 than Dr. Martin Luther King did when he delivered 'I Have A Dream,'" the organization wrote in a post to X. "Not only is that completely false, but here’s what is more important: MLK’s speech was about democracy. Trump’s was about tearing it down."

The comment comes as Trump faces backlash for focusing his attacks on rival Vice President Kamala Harris on her ethnicity. Harris identifies as both black and Indian, as the daughter of a black man and Indian woman.

Trump's allies have argued the former president has a better chance of returning to the White House in November if he focuses on Harris's policies rather than her race and gender.

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.