Less than 24 hours before Vice President Kamala Harris is set to debate Donald Trump, her campaign released a new ad taunting the Republican nominee with former President Barack Obama’s eyebrow-raising joke at the Democratic National Convention.
The 30-second video, titled “Crowd Size,” features a clip of Obama on stage at the DNC gesturing with his hands while he joked about Trump’s obsession with crowd size.
“Here is a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago,” Obama said in his speech. “There’s the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes,” he added while also gesturing with his hands as the crowd erupted with laughter.
The ad, which will air Tuesday on Fox News, also includes clips of small, seemingly disinterested crowds at some of Trump’s rallies while the sound of crickets play over the footage. It then cuts to footage of a cheering crowd at a Harris rally.
Trump’s obsession with crowd sizes goes back years, the former president grossly exaggerating how many people attend his rallies. This campaign season he’s repeatedly boasted, falsely, that his crowds are bigger than those for Harris. He has even falsely claimed that she used AI to generate an image of a large crowd at one of her rallies.
“Trump spends a lot of time concerned about his crowd sizes, but the American people are far more concerned about which candidate will make their lives better—and it’s not the guy running on the Project 2025 agenda,” Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson Michael Taylor said in a statement.
“Tonight’s debate will present the stark choice Americans will face at the ballot box: between Vice President Harris who is fighting for the people to make our lives better, and the guy who can’t seem to stop obsessing about himself and the size of his crowds,” he added.
