John Jefferson
Donald Trump has now boasted that he is “greater than Elvis” and draws in bigger crowds than the Rock and Roll star, in spite of what he suggests is a major disadvantage: that he doesn’t have a guitar.
The former president returned to the campaign trail in Uniondale, Long Island, on Wednesday, for his first public appearance since the second attempt on his life at his West Palm Beach golf resort on Sunday.
After declaring to the crowd that God spared his life “not once, but twice,” Trump returned to familiar ground as he began boasting and overinflating the size of crowds flocking to his campaign rallies.
“I call up my wife [Melania Trump], and say, ‘Baby, who can draw crowds… nobody can draw crowds like me, not even close,’” he told supporters at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
Trump then went further and compared his own fame and appeal to his idol Elvis Presley.
“I’m the greatest of all time,” he said.
“Maybe greater even than Elvis,” he mulled, pointing to something he claims gives him the edge: “Elvis had a guitar, I don’t have a guitar. I don’t have the privilege of a guitar.”
While the New York venue has fewer than 16,000 seats, police estimated that at least 50,000 people showed up for the rally, according to local New York news station PIX 11 – marking one of Trump’s largest rallies of his re-election campaign.
Elvis meanwhile drew 60,500 people to a gig in Pontiac, Michigan, in December 1965.
Trump has become increasingly obsessed with his crowd sizes at his campaign rallies.
Last month, the former president falsely declared that attendance at his rally on January 6, 2021 – prior to the attack on the Capitol – rivaled the size of the crowd that Martin Luther King Jr drew to watch his “I have a dream” speech in August 1963.
Vice President Kamala Harris capitalized on Trump’s obsession during the presidential debate, baiting him into responding to her claim that his supporters leave rallies early out of “exhaustion and boredom.”
“People don’t leave my rallies,” Trump fired back. “We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics.”
The former president has long been infatuated with Elvis.
Trump posthumously honored Elvis at his first Medal of Freedom ceremony as president in November 2018.
“Crowds were enraptured by Elvis’s electric performances and… unbreakable bond with his fans,” Trump said at the time, noting that the audience would go wild as he was “there once.”
Earlier this year, the Republican presidential nominee even compared the pair’s looks – despite Elvis being billed as one of the sexiest artists of all time and earning the nickname “Elvis the Pelvis.”
“For so many years people have been saying that Elvis and I look alike,” Trump said on Instagram earlier this year, posting a side-by-side shot of himself with the musician.
“Now this pic has been going all over the place. What do you think?”
There’s also another thing Trump and Elvis have in common: a penchant for McDonald’s burgers.
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