What's Rattling Trump: The Size of Harris's Crowds

The numbers game is everything to Donald J. Trump. Vice President Kamala
Harris�s first big rally appears to have gotten under his skin.

By Shawn McCreesh

Reporting from Atlanta
Published Aug. 4, 2024Updated Aug. 5, 2024, 9:03 a.m. ET

When former President Donald J. Trump walked onto the stage at his rally
in Atlanta on Saturday, fog machines shot white plumes of smoke into the
air, heralding his arrival.

If you looked closely, you could almost imagine steam pouring out of his
ears, too. All week long, something had been giving him the vapors.

�Crazy Kamala,� he fumed a minute into his speech. �She was here a week
ago � lots of empty seats � but the crowd she got was because she had
entertainers.�

Four days earlier, Vice President Kamala Harris had packed about the same
number of people (10,000) into the arena, the Georgia State University
Convocation Center. It was the first major rally of her newborn campaign,
and she had two rappers (Quavo and Megan Thee Stallion) on hand to hype
up her crowd.

Mr. Trump, who has been shunned by much of the entertainment industry,
spun this as somehow cheating in the all-important competition over crowd
size.

�I don't need entertainers,� he said on Saturday. �I fill the stadium
because I�m making America great again.�

The numbers game has long been of paramount importance for Mr. Trump. As
a reality television star, he was obsessed with ratings (�What is it
about me that gets Larry King his highest ratings?� he wrote in one of
his books). This only intensified once he entered politics. He spent his
first full day in office as president trying to convince the news media
that his inauguration crowd was larger than the Women�s March. (It was
not.)

The crowds he has drawn to his rallies this campaign season have been as
big as ever. Whether in blistering heat or deep freeze, his supporters
line up for hours beforehand to see him. Mr. Trump�s previous two rivals,
Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, could never compete with him on this
front. What will it mean if his new challenger can?

Ms. Harris�s rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, when she is expected to
unveil her running mate, is likely to be a blowout. After that, she�s
going on tour, holding rallies in western Wisconsin; Detroit; Raleigh,
N.C.; Savannah, Ga.; Phoenix; and Las Vegas. It�s all starting to screw
with Mr. Trump�s psyche.

In Atlanta, his surrogates reassured everyone that he was still the
hottest ticket in town. �I can feel the energy, whew,� said
Representative Mike Collins, Republican of Georgia. �The freakin� lines
are longer this time. The crowds are larger this time.�

�There�s still people piling in right now,� Burt Jones, Georgia�s
lieutenant governor, said. �It�s unbelievable.�
2024 Election: Live Updates
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Here�s the latest on the presidential race.
Harris has faced party divisions over her choice of running mate.
Jimmy Carter is said to have plans to vote for Kamala Harris.

Still, Mr. Trump couldn�t help but focus on those who weren�t piling in.
He claimed that Georgia State University officials in charge of the arena
prevented him from letting in more people. �We have beautiful cameras set
up for the overflow crowds,� he said. A massive screen flashed to a live
video feed of his red-capped supporters milling around outside in the 90-
degree heat.

In Mr. Trump�s telling, this wasn�t a safety protocol but a conspiracy to
humiliate him, perpetrated by the university and other nefarious forces.
It all connects, in his estimation, to the biggest numbers game he has
ever lost. �If they�re going to stand in the way of admitting people to
our rally, just imagine what they�re going to do on Election Day,� he
said.

This goes to the core of Mr. Trump�s crowd-size fixation. He seems to
believe that a full arena is a predictor of his ultimate victory � as if
the voters in that arena were representative of the country at large. In
his first presidential campaign, Mr. Trump�s sizable rallies were
evidence of a swell of support the political establishment didn�t
understand. �Look at the love and adulation � this is like a poll,� he
said in one revealing moment in Atlanta. �We have thousands of people.
That�s better than going out and paying a half a million dollars to have
some pollster go out and poll 212 people.�

Thirty minutes into his speech, he became distracted again by the
seating: �There�s some seats right up there � they could let them come
in.�

He complained about the venue to Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene,
Republican of Georgia, who was sitting in the front row: �It�s obviously,
Marjorie, a very liberal school, I guess, right? I�m not happy with the
school.� He claimed that �they don�t want to show that we�re successful.�

And then he was back, once again, on Ms. Harris and her crowd size. �She
has to go get entertainers,� he repeated. �They start leaving as soon as
she opens her mouth.�

This seemed like pure projection. If Mr. Trump had looked up from his
teleprompter at any point during the second half of his 90-minute speech,
he would have seen his own supporters slipping out of their bright blue
seats, headed for the exits. Slowly but surely, across every stand and in
every section, they streamed out. Stage left, a man in a star-spangled
cowboy hat sidled down his row at the halfway mark. Two men holding signs
bearing Mr. Trump�s mugshot tiptoed up their aisle a minute later. A
young woman led her family away just as Mr. Trump started to falsely tell
them that �Kamala Harris let in the savage monster who murdered Laken
Riley.�

This happens at every rally, to a degree. And it is more a factor of the
time commitment involved than any sort of discontent with his message.
Supporters show up, get their photos for Facebook of the man in the arena
and, at some point during his discursive stemwinders, decide that they�ve
heard enough and that it�s time to go eat.

Still, an hour into his speech, the Atlanta crowd had emptied out more
than usual. (Like Madonna, he often keeps his crowds waiting for an hour
or more past the scheduled start time, which doesn�t help the situation.)
Large splotches of blue had blossomed across the upper stands, and people
on the floor had started to sneak away, too.

Mr. Trump�s most faithful followers were also feeling defensive about the
dueling rally discourse on Saturday.

�I think there was just a little bit of hype for her as she first comes
out, but I think that�s going to die out,� said Mark Adent, 57, the
executive vice president of a printing company in Atlanta.

But there was something about Ms. Harris�s star turn at the same arena
that had unsettled Mr. Trump. He seemed to be pining for the glory days
of his first campaign, back when his rollicking rallies were but a
harbinger of a stunning victory to come. He said that seeing two rappers
open for Ms. Harris reminded him of how Mrs. Clinton used musicians to
help summon the kinds of crowds he could command with ease.

�She got the idea from Hillary,� he told his supporters. �Hillary got
Bruce Springsteen, I�ll never forget, and the place was pretty full.�

�Not full like our places are full,� he quickly added. �I don�t have a
guitar. But our places are bigger � we get more people than anybody. I
don�t care how many guitars they have.�

https://cdn.forumcomm.com/dims4/default/24e92a3/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2556x1704+0+0/resize/840x560!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fforum-communications-production-web.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F20%2F16%2F48551dda462b95a14a22a0e7ec50%2F091024-n-ff-bisoncrime1.jpg
Former North Dakota State University linebacker Jaiden Pickett appeared Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, via videoconference in Cass County District Court. Anna Paige / The Forum

This stupid nigger went to college. You can't teach stupid.

FARGO — A former North Dakota State University linebacker got into a fight before shooting a gun into a house and nearly hit a person inside, court documents allege.

Jaiden Traydeon Pickett, 19, of Milwaukee, appeared Monday, Sept. 9, in Cass County District Court on felony charges of terrorizing, reckless endangerment and theft of a firearm. Judge Tristan Van de Streek set his bond at $50,000.

Court documents give some details of what happened shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday that led to Pickett’s arrest at a Fargo house. The Fargo Police Department was called to the 1200 block of 11th Street North for a report of shots fired.

Witnesses told police that Logan Mathieu, an NDSU junior from Eagle River, Alaska, who does hurdles for the Bison men’s track and field team, got into a “physical altercation/argument” with Pickett and his football teammate, William Frattalone, on the boulevard, according to an incident report. Frattalone is a redshirt freshman from Wayzata, Minnesota. He is a cornerback but has not played yet for the Bison.

Pickett pulled a Beretta Px4 Storm 9 mm handgun from his waistband and fired it into the house, the incident report said. The single bullet nearly hit another NDSU athlete inside the house, according to court documents.

Before the shooting, video shows Frattalone yelling and wanting to fight others, according to the incident report.

Another video shows Pickett pointing his gun at Mathieu and “even jabbing Logan with it at one point,” the incident report said.

Video did not show the shooting, the incident report said. No one was injured, according to police.

Court documents also said the gun Pickett had on him when police arrived was stolen.

Pickett denied shooting the firearm, according to court documents. He told Van de Streek that he does not deserve to be charged, adding that anyone the judge talks to will say Pickett is a “good guy.”

“Please take that into consideration,” Pickett said before Van de Streek set bail.

Van de Streek decided Pickett qualifies for a public defender but followed prosecutor recommendations to set bond at $50,000.

“These are serious charges,” the judge said.

Pickett was a redshirt freshman who did not play a game last season. For the first time in his college career, Pickett took the field as a linebacker during the second half of the Bison’s first home game Saturday at the Fargodome.

NDSU defeated the Tennessee State University Tigers 52-3. Pickett’s arrest came just hours after the victory.

The Forum reported Monday morning that NDSU kicked Pickett off its football team because he violated the school’s student-athlete code of conduct.

“Being a student-athlete at NDSU is a privilege that comes with an expectation of representing the team and the university in a positive manner while being a responsible member of our community,” Bison head coach Tim Polasek and athletic director Matt Larsen said in a statement.

Pickett was considered a highly regarded recruit who also had offers from Illinois State, North Dakota, Northern Iowa and South Dakota State.

Pickett remains in custody at the Cass County Jail. He faces up to five years in prison for each charge if found guilty, as well as a minimum of two years in prison since a gun was used in the allegations.

"The athletic department will review any new information, but at this time we do not have any further disciplinary action to announce," Bison Assistant Athletic Director Ryan Perreault told The Forum.

Editor's note: An original version of this story contained incorrect information about the person with whom Jaiden Pickett was fighting. The story was corrected at 4:17 p.m., Monday, Sept. 9.

Stupid niggers.

https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/fargo/former-ndsu-linebacker-got-into-fight-with-fellow-bison-athlete-before-shooting-house-charges-allege