Videos Show 'Jaw Dropping' Crowd Ahead of Trump's South Carolina Rally

Videos circulating on Twitter show a "jaw dropping" crowd size of supporters in attendance for former President Donald Trump ahead of his 2024 presidential campaign stop in Pickens, South Carolina, on Saturday.

Trump is arriving at the rally under mounting legal pressure stemming from several investigations launched against him by the Department of Justice (DOJ) including his alleged involvement in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot and the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, in which he was indicted last month. Trump is the first former president to face federal charges in American history and has pleaded not guilty in the classified documents case. The DOJ's probe into the Capitol riot is still ongoing.

Daniel Baldwin, a national political correspondent for One America News, and CNN political reporter Alayna Treene shared videos and pictures of crowds standing in a long line Saturday morning ahead of the rally.

"The South Carolina trump crowd is jaw dropping. The line literally doesn't end," tweeted Baldwin, who also described Trump supporters in another tweet as being part of an "INSANE TURNOUT in South Carolina. Thousands of people here before 8am. Enthusiasm through the roof for Pres. Trump and the MAGA movement."

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, who are both staunch allies of Trump, arrived early at the event, according to Treene.

"Pickens, South Carolina! 8:00 am and people can't wait to see President Trump! I'll be there soon!" Greene tweeted early Saturday morning.

Trump is set to speak at 1 p.m. ET, and wrote in a Truth Social post that the crowd size was "AMAZING!" and touted "MAGA!!!" Meanwhile, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster and Representatives William Timmons and Russell Fry are among the guest speakers at the rally.

Trump, who announced his presidential bid last November, has been facing a legal challenge in his classified documents case, which the DOJ launched after the FBI recovered hundreds of documents with classified markings from his Mar-a-Lago Florida residence last August. The former president denied any wrongdoing, criticized the investigation and the DOJ, and claimed that he declassified the documents before taking them from the White House before he left office.

His latest campaign stop comes after CNN published a leaked audio of him admitting that he kept secret material after he left office and that he no longer had the authority to declassify them.

In the 2-minute audio, Trump can be heard during a July 2021 meeting at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, saying how he has a "highly confidential" Pentagon paper about a potential attack on Iran.

During the meeting, Trump told those who were present that "as president, I could have declassified" the document. "Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret."

Trump later denied that he had a classified document during the July 2021 meeting. He spoke to Fox News a day after CNN first aired the audio and said that the sound of rustling papers, which can be heard on the tape, were mostly "newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans" that he kept on his desk.

During a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Tuesday, the former president dismissed the classified documents probe and called it a "witch hunt."

"Every time the radical left Democrats, Marxists, communists and fascists indict me, I consider it a badge—great, great, beautiful badge of honor and courage," Trump said at the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women's annual Lilac luncheon in Concord. "Because I'm being indicted for you."

Newsweek reached out by email to Trump's media spokesperson for comment.