'Tons of people here!' TMZ reporter pans to empty Freedom 250 lawn as Dr. Oz touts crowds
President Donald Trump's Medicare and Medicaid administrator Dr. Oz took the stage at the Great American State Fair on Monday to brag about the crowd size — but a TMZ reporter was on scene to pan the camera and reveal that, in fact, almost no one was there on the National Mall to watch the speech.
"There are tons of people here, it's a huge space, and it's going to get more and more crowded as the week goes on," said Oz, standing on the stage with right-wing actor Dean Cain.
He went on to tout the guests at the event, including Pennsylvania state treasurer and Republican gubernatorial candidate Stacy Garrity.
Meanwhile, the video posted to X showed the reporter, Charlie Cotton, scanning the crowd, showing only a small cluster of people near the stage and the rest of the Mall practically deserted.
The picture, TMZ concluded, was "quite the opposite" of what Oz was boasting.
The Great American State Fair is part of "Freedom 250," a series of explicitly partisan events the Trump administration organized by hijacking the originally nonpartisan America250 celebrations authorized by Congress.
The whole series of events, leading up to the 250th anniversary of America's founding, has been plagued with issues from the start, including a promised list of celebrity performers who did not materialize, and air traffic shutdowns caused by Trump's plans for massive fireworks displays.
Oz is not alone; Trump himself, who has throughout his time in politics embellished his own crowd sizes, claimed last week that the kickoff rally for the fair was "packed to the brim," even though it wasn't.
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