On Wednesday, October 28, 2026, Jen Psaki used her MS NOW show, The Briefing with Jen Psaki, to suggest President Donald Trump and Republican candidates were struggling to attract enthusiastic crowds ahead of the midterm elections.
Psaki compared Trump’s rally at the Shoemaker Center on Ohio University’s Chillicothe campus with a packed Democratic rally in Georgia featuring former President Barack Obama, Senator Jon Ossoff, and gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms.
You know, the rally where singer Janelle Monáe performed a concert before Obama took the stage.
If Democrats have so much enthusiasm, why do they need celebrities to help draw a crowd?
But look at the footage Psaki chose to show viewers while mocking Trump’s crowd size. She showed a gymnasium with empty bleachers while Trump wasn’t even onstage!
Psaki told viewers:
“This was the college gym where Donald Trump held his rally today in Chillicothe, Ohio. A venue that was notably smaller than the kind of major arenas that Trump used to be able to fill. Look at the empty benches there, everyone.”
She continued:
“And it’s not just Trump who’s having trouble drawing big enthusiastic crowds, which clearly he definitely is.”
The screenshot from her broadcast shows people standing and gathering on the gymnasium floor while sections of the bleachers remain empty. Trump isn’t onstage, yet Psaki repeatedly draws attention to the empty benches, expecting viewers to believe he couldn’t fill the venue.
Here’s what she left out.
According to WOSU Public Media, more than 3,000 people packed the Shoemaker Center, with hundreds more watching on screens outside.
And since when does every Trump rally need to take place in a massive arena? Trump holds campaign events at venues of different sizes, including smaller college facilities. Not every appearance needs to accommodate tens of thousands of people.
Psaki then showed a sparsely attended event for Republican Senate candidate Mike Collins in Georgia, mocking the small gathering and comparing it to a mandatory driver’s training class.
But Collins was traveling across Georgia making multiple campaign stops, including appearances at cafés, restaurants, and community venues. His October 27 campaign schedule included a noon café visit and an evening student-center event. These were part of a statewide campaign effort, not necessarily major rallies.
On October 24, Collins appeared alongside Trump at a packed Republican rally in Perry, Georgia. According to FOX 5 Atlanta, the event attracted an enthusiastic crowd supporting Collins and gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson.
Psaki wanted viewers to believe Republicans were struggling to attract supporters while Democrats were drawing huge crowds. But WOSU reported that more than 3,000 people packed Trump’s Ohio rally, with hundreds more watching outside. That’s hardly evidence of a rally struggling to attract supporters.
If she wanted to demonstrate that Trump couldn’t fill the gymnasium, why didn’t she show viewers what the crowd looked like while he was speaking?
Instead, Jen pointed to empty benches in footage where Trump wasn’t even onstage, expecting viewers to accept that as evidence of declining enthusiasm.
That’s not a convincing measure of crowd size. It’s a misleading way to present the story.
The photo below shows what Trump’s Ohio rally actually looked like with thousands of supporters packed into the gymnasium
But look closely, Jen! There’s still a row of empty seats. Maybe you can make another segment out of that!
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