Quick Take
A viral story falsely claims that President Donald Trump held a rally with “massive crowds” in Chicago, proving “Dems are turning to Trump.” There was no such rally. The story, which deceptively features a photo from a London concert, originated on a website that calls its work satire.
Full Story
President Donald Trump was scheduled to hold a rally in Chicago during his 2016 presidential campaign, but the campaign cancelled the event amid protests.
Since then, Trump has visited the city — including as president in October 2019, when he spoke at a police chiefs conference and attended a private campaign fundraiser.
But it’s not true that he recently held a rally there with “upwards of 150,000″ supporters. That erroneous claim has been spread by thousands on social media under the headline, “Trump Rally Crowd Size In Chicago Shows Dems Are Turning To Trump.”
The false report is illustrated with a photo that does not show a Trump rally, but was instead taken at the storied 1985 Live Aid concert in London. The same photo previously has been doctored and shared on social media to advance the erroneous claim that it depicted a Trump rally “in downtown Philly.”
Both bogus claims leave the impression that reliably Democratic strongholds are drifting toward Trump. In the 2016 election, more than 83 percent of voters in Chicago voted for Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. And in Philadelphia, where more than three-quarters of voters are registered Democrats, more than 82 percent of voters cast ballots for Clinton.
The latest made-up report originated in December 2019 on dailyworldupdate.us, part of “America’s Last Line of Defense,” a self-described satirical publication whose headlines often dupe social media users despite disclaimers on its websites.
The story was republished on the website ajuanews.com, where the only disclaimer is a small watermark on the image. That version was shared by nearly 25,000 Facebook users, according to CrowdTangle data. Another version also appeared on the website “scaryhalloweencostumes2019.com.”
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.
Sources
“About.” DailyWorldUpdate.us. Accessed 2 Jan 2020.
“Live Aid Concert at Wembley Stadium, London, Britain – 1985.” Rex Features. Accessed 17 May 2019.
“Remarks by President Trump at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference and Exposition | Chicago, IL.” White House. 28 Oct 2019.
Thomas, Holly. “33 years later, Queen’s Live Aid performance is still pure magic.” CNN. Nov 2018.