Photos of dense crowds lining city streets were shared alongside the claim that they depicted the pro-Trump rally that took place in Washington DC on November 14, 2020. While the rally gathered thousands of people in the US capital, some of the photos in fact showed celebrations in Cleveland, Ohio after the Cavaliers won the NBA Championship in 2016.
"Beautiful scenes in Washington DC for the million MAGA march," a Facebook user wrote, while another commented "I've never seen this many people in one big crowd in DC to support OUR PRESIDENT Donald J Trump!" -- in reference to the pro-Trump rally organized in the city on Saturday. The posts shared multiple aerial photos of impressively packed crowds in a city environment.
A screenshot of a Facebook post taken on November 15, 2020 sharing old photos of crowds in Cleveland, Ohio Other examples of the claim can be found on Facebook here, here and here.
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After conducting a reverse image search, AFP Fact Check found the photos were not from Saturday's march.
The images have circulated online since June 2016 after more than one million fans gathered to celebrate the historic triumph of the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.
Led by hometown hero LeBron James, fans in the US state of Ohio came out in force as the win ended a major title drought that had haunted Cleveland since 1964.
One image (top left in the Facebook post above) was shared on Twitter on June 22, 2016 by the Cavaliers' verified account.
A screenshot of a tweet from the verified account of the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA team on June 22, 2016 Another image (bottom left) is credited to Tom Withers of the Associated Press. While a third (top right) is credited to Aaron Josefczyk of Reuters.
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Million attendees?
At least 10,000 die-hard Trump supporters -- few wearing masks -- massed on DC's Freedom Plaza on Saturday before marching to the Supreme Court in a raucous atmosphere reminiscent of a Trump campaign rally.
The crowd size was once again a source of debate on social media. While most media organizations reported several thousand people attended the event, some in Trump's team, including White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, claimed it attracted over one million people.
As of November 15, 2020, local authorities had not released official crowd estimates.
Trump is sticking to discredited claims of election fraud and continues to claim he will defeat Democrat Joe Biden.
AFP Fact Check has debunked several false claims of widespread election fraud and all of our fact-checks related to the 2020 US election are available in English here.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by BOOM staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
