During speech on his Texas disaster tour, Donald Trump inexplicably boasts about the crowd size

| 3:00 pm EDT August 29, 2017
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Donald Trump has largely defined his brief time in office by repeatedly bragging, and usually lying, about the size of the crowd that’s turned out for his various speeches. One would think that while he was touring Texas today to take in the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey and the resulting floods, he might have had the sense not to bring up the size of the crowd. But sure enough, while standing on a firetruck and giving a speech in Texas today, Trump did indeed brag about crowd size.

Several reporters and news outlets have documented the moment. Jeremy Diamond of CNN posted this: “As Trump addressed a crowd gathered outside the firehouse where he got a briefing, Trump remarked: ‘What a crowd, what a turnout,’ per pool” (link). Christina Wilkie posted this: “What a crowd, what a turnout,” Trump said from atop this firetruck, addressing hurricane victims.” (link). And so yes, Trump really did go there about crowd size.

Jennifer Epstein of Bloomberg pointed out that Trump was actually giving the speech not in Houston, but instead in Corpus Christi, which has not seen flooding. So the people he was addressing in that moment were his supporters who turned up to see him, and not flood victims. But nonetheless, Trump gave this speech about recovery efforts while he was in the midst of a disaster tour trip, while standing on top of a firetruck. His speech was clearly aimed at being seen as part of his disaster tour.

Perhaps this kind of narcissistic debacle shouldn’t come as a surprise. Donald Trump has been so eager to convince himself that he’s beloved, he’s lied about the crowd sizes at events spanning from his inauguration to his recent Phoenix event. And so even as he was touring Texas today, ostensibly to demonstrate to the people in the state that the federal government will help them survive this, he was instead focused on how many people turned out to hear him speak about the disaster.