Quick Take
A photo of the 1969 Woodstock music festival is circulating on Facebook with the false claim that the picture shows the crowd at a recent rally held by President Donald Trump.
Full Story
President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Montoursville, Pennsylvania on May 20, and the next day an aerial photo showing a crush of people began circulating online with this caption: “No, This Is Not Woodstock- This Is A Trump Rally In Pennsylvania Yesterday!”
But it is a picture of the 1969 Woodstock musical festival in Bethel, New York. It was taken by Barry Z. Levine on Aug. 15, 1969.
Pictures of the recent Trump rally in Pennsylvania show a smaller crowd gathered at the airport where the rally was held.
Both Trump and Fred Keller, whom the president endorsed for a vacant seat in Congress during the rally, posted pictures of the spectators on Twitter. Trump posted four photos with this caption: “Massive crowds in Pennsylvania tonight. Thank you for joining me!”
Massive crowds in Pennsylvania tonight. Thank you for joining me! pic.twitter.com/v1e0d0AHHo
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 21, 2019
One of those photos shows most of the crowd.
Keller, who won the Pennsylvania special election the day after the rally, retweeted a photo of the crowd posted by Trump’s 2020 campaign spokesman, Tim Murtaugh, with this caption: “Great crowd building at the airport in Montoursville, PA for #MAGA rally.”
Most news coverage of the rally didn’t report on the size of the crowd, but many outlets included pictures or video that show the crowd. One local Pennsylvania newspaper estimated that “thousands” were in the crowd.
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
C-SPAN. President Trump Campaign Rally in Pennsylvania. 20 May 2019.
Levine, Barry. “Aerial View Of Woodstock Festival.” Getty Images. 15 Aug 1969.
Trump, Donald (@realDonaldTrump). “Massive crowds in Pennsylvania tonight. Thank you for joining me!” Twitter. 20 May 2019.
Paez, Sarah. “Pennsylvania 12th District special election: What happened and why?” Centre Daily Times. 22 May 2019.
Murtaugh, Tim. “Great crowd building at the airport in Montoursville, PA for #MAGA rally. @realDonaldTrump will be here soon in PA-12 in support of @VoteFredKeller, whose special election is tomorrow. Beautiful night! Great patriots!” Twitter. 20 May 2019.
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