Sometimes it’s not just about crowd sizes. After Barack Obama issued the burn seen around the world while speaking at the Democratic National Convention, Trump almost seems too scared to bring it up again. No man wants to watch the world laugh when someone twice as popular makes fun of his “size.”

So during his town hall in Pennsylvania, Trump decided to go a different route.

Hosted by Sean Hannity, Trump was afforded the opportunity to give an interview in his ideal setting: Sitting down, with no questions for the first hour. Pretty much the perfect situation for a guy who loves to go off script.

And he used the circumstances like only he can. He lied without interruption for both hours, about everything he could think of. And while there were some notable whoppers throughout, one really stuck out like a sore thumb.

At one point while Trump was grousing about ABC, the network that will be hosting his debate with Kamala Harris, he made an extraordinary claim. It was an easy claim to make — the host is from Fox News, and his audience was comprised of Fox News viewers.

But it was ridiculous nonetheless.

“We’re putting a lot of reliance on a network which is known for being extremely hostile to [sweeping arm gesture toward his crowd] the people in this room, and to, I think, 75, 80 percent of the country, if you want to really know the truth,” Trump said.

If Trump believes that ABC is unfair to 80 percent of the country who he says supports him, it would be an incredible feat indeed. That would include more than our entire voting-age population. I’ll tell you what’s a high percentage, though. It’s the amount of Trump’s rhetoric centered on just saying really big numbers. That’s sitting around 100 percent right now.

Of course, people caught on quickly.

They know that Trump is pretending to have that much support in order to bolster the future argument that any election loss must have been because of Democratic shenanigans at the polls. Many commenters on X called him “desperate” and “delusional.”

“He’s trying to convince everyone that he is going to win and if he doesn’t it’s impossible with all of the support he thinks he has – Stop the Steal 2 coming soon…” wrote one social media user.

“We’ve officially moved into ‘imaginary friends’ territory,” said another, while a third chimed in with “Next week it will be 80-90%. Week after that EVERYONE is his supporter.”

But it’s not really a new statement for the former president, which makes it hard to tell if he IS priming his supporters for rebellion if he loses. It could be that he actually believes it’s true. Last month at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said almost exactly the same thing: “I think the base is 75 percent of the country, far beyond the Republican party. Because we’re a party of common sense and I’m a person of common sense.”

The part that makes that earlier statement so funny to me is that it came shortly before about 200 of his former supporters came out and endorsed Kamala Harris because they’re so terrified at the prospect of another Trump term.

Watch the town hall video here:

Trump claims that his supporters make up “75, 80 percent of the country, if you want to really know the truth” pic.twitter.com/uTLz6qg4Np

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 6, 2024