President Donald Trump said on Thursday that more people came to see his 2019 July Fourth speech at the Lincoln Memorial than came to see the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famed “I Have a Dream” speech.
Trump made the comments while talking about renovations his administration was undertaking at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
“That’s where Martin Luther King gave his great speech, and he had a million people, and I had the same exact crowd, maybe a little bit more, but they said I had 45,000 people,” said Trump. “I have pictures of Martin Luther King’s crowd, my crowd, it’s the exact same everything, but it was 70 years difference.”
“The exact same crowd,” the president added. “I actually had more people, but that’s OK. They gave him, they gave him a million people.”
Trump made the comments during an Oval Office event announcing a new prescription pricing deal with the pharmaceutical giant Regeneron. During the announcement, Trump went off script, telling reporters about improvements to the White House and other installations in the nation’s capital.
Trump, in particular, highlighted for reporters an outdoor path leading to the Oval Office that was being renovated because the slate was “coming to pieces.”
“The whole White House has been in bad shape,” said Trump. “It’s right now, in better shape than it is, well, I think, since the day they built it. This is better right now.”
ALL CONSTRUCTION FOR TRUMP BALLROOM CAN RESUME, APPEALS COURT RULES
Since returning to office last year, Trump has pushed to make his mark on Washington. The president has begun construction on a 9,000-square-foot ballroom, which is set to occupy the ground upon which the former East Wing of the White House stood.
The Commission of Fine Arts has also approved plans to build a 250-foot “Independence Arch” inside an empty traffic circle near Arlington National Cemetery. The arch’s projected height would dwarf similar structures, such as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which is 164 feet tall.