Trump factcheck: Is the US President correct in saying ‘big’ crowds gathered to support him during UK state visit?

(PA)

Donald Trump has suggested “big crowds” turned out to support him in London on Tuesday, while demonstrations held by opposition groups were “organised flops”.

The statement, made in an early morning tweet on Wednesday, came after thousands took to the streets on the second day of the US president's state visit.

He tweeted: "I kept hearing that there would be 'massive' rallies against me in the UK, but it was quite the opposite.

"The big crowds, which the Corrupt Media hates to show, were those that gathered in support of the USA and me.

"They were big & enthusiastic as opposed to the organised flops!"

However that narrative contrasts sharply with what those on the march actually witnessed, as well as initial police estimates and the figure given by the organisers.

1. How many took to the streets?

   Calculating crowd sizes is an inexact science, but there were undeniably thousands of people marching in London on Tuesday.

   An early estimate from police officers stationed in Trafalgar Square, where Tuesday’s anti-Tump rally started, put the figure at at least 10,000.

   After the march had finished, Scotland Yard said they would not provide an estimate for crowd sizes, but separately said they had deployed more than 3,000 officers for the event – and protestors easily outnumbered uniformed officers.

   Organisers said the figure was closer to 75,000. Chris Nineham, from Together Against Trump, said estimates of crowd sizes were made when the rally gathered in Whitehall to hear speeches.

   He said at that point people were gathered in a rectangle on a stretch of road from Downing Street leading up to Trafalgar Square, which made it easier to estimate. Observers were sent into the crowd to count rows and columns of people.

2. Were there more Trump fans than critics?

   Absolutely not. There were small pockets of pro-Trump fans wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and holding US flags, but these were vastly outnumbered by those opposed to the president, and there was no separate organised rally in support of Mr Trump.

   The fact police were forced to lock a group of around 20 pro-Trump activists in a pub for their own safety suggests there were many more on the streets who were opposed to the president’s visit.

   Video and photo evidence supports the suggestion that Trump supporters did not attend in significant numbers.

   Weyman Bennett, from Unite Against Fascism, who was on the march, said he had been made aware by police of between 25 and 35 pro-Trump demonstrators.

   

   A robot of Trump on a toilet made an appearance (EPA)

   

   Anti-Trump protesters in Trafalgar Square (EPA)

   Videos shared by Trump fans apparently showing crowds in support of the president on Tuesday have also been debunked.

   Responding to Mr Trump's tweet, fan account The Trump Train posted a video of demonstrators chanting "We want Trump" in London. However, the video appeared to have been taken at a "Free Tommy Robinson" protest in June 2018, while the far-right activist was in jail for contempt of court.

   Footage of the same protest was widely shared on social media in December 2018 to falsely claim as evidence that French "yellow vest" demonstrators were also chanting "We want Trump", and the president himself endorsed the claim.

   In December, Mr Trump tweeted: "The Paris Agreement isn't working out so well for Paris. Protests and riots all over France ... Chanting 'We Want Trump!' Love France."

3. Did the media ignore the Trump fans who were there, as the president suggested?

   Again, no. The small number of Trump supporters in the crowd attracted a disproportionate amount of news coverage for their size, largely because of scuffles involving them and rival protesters that broke out along the route.

4. Why would Trump claim ‘big crowds’ gathered to support him?

   Firstly, the president has a history of misrepresenting crowd sizes. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Mr Trump has claimed repeatedly that he had the largest inauguration crowd in history.

   Following comparisons to Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, Mr Trump was swift to denounce side-by-side photographs which showed Mr Obama’s inauguration crowd against his own, claiming the photograph of his 2017 inauguration had been “taken early”, before everyone had arrived.

   “I had a massive amount of people here. They were showing pictures that were very unflattering, as unflattering -- from certain angles -- that were taken early and lots of other things. I'll show you a picture later if you’d like of a massive crowd,” he told ABC News at the time.

   Mr Trump also has a history of making outlandish claims that are provably false – including ahead of this state visit, when he described Meghan Markle as “nasty” before insisting he had been misquoted.

   He later tweeted that the comments had been “made up by the fake news media”, who he said had “got caught cold”.

   But The Sun newspaper subsequently posted a recording and transcript of the interview, in which he said: “I didn’t know that. What can I say? I didn’t know that she was nasty."