Trump claims in Wildwood his crowds are bigger than 'wacko' Bruce Springsteen crowds

There he goes again.

Former President Donald Trump once again compared crowd sizes with Jersey native Bruce Springsteen at his May 11 campaign rally in Wildwood.

“I love these Saturday evenings. Is there anything better than a Trump rally?” said Trump from the stage. “If some of these wackos came along, you know, these liberal singers, they'd actually vote for me. You know they'd all vote for me. You know, like Bruce Springsteen. We have a much bigger crowd than Bruce Springsteen. Right?”

Trump said there were 100,000 people, including former New York Giants Lawrence Taylor and O.J. Anderson, at the Wildwood event on Saturday. The last time Springsteen and the E Street Band played in New Jersey, 180,000 came out to three shows at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford Aug. 30 and Sept. 1 and 3.

It wasn't the first time Trump compared crowd sizes with Springsteen. He claimed to have held bigger rallies than Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign rallies with Springsteen, Beyonce and Jay-Z during an  Aug 2, 2018 campaign rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

“(Clinton would) bring in Beyonce, and then Jay-Z would get up and he’d use language that was so bad if I used that language I’d be run out of the country,” said Trump in Wilkes-Barre. “They say Trump’s language is very tough -- you ever hear Jay-Z? And then she brought in Bruce Springsteen and they would draw crowds that were smaller than my crowd.”

Springsteen, a Freehold native, wasn't the only Jersey music great on Trump's mind Saturday. He also brought up a conversation he had with the late Frank Sinatra, a native of Hoboken.

More: Bruce Springsteen, Howard Stern and the rise of radio resistance to Donald Trump

More: Wildwood Trump rally: Town starts to fill up hours before he speaks

“Frank Sinatra told me a long time ago, never eat before you perform,” Trump said. “I'm not performing. I'm a politician, if you can believe it. I hate to be called a politician. I like, 'I'm a businessman' much better but I guess I'm a politician.”

Trump, 77, is the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee. He's currently standing trial in a New York criminal case as he's charged with falsifying business records to benefit his successful 2016 campaign for president.

Springsteen was critical of Trump's presidency, commenting several times on his SiriusXM show on the former president’s policies and actions.

“As we speak, 40 million people are unemployed. One-hundred thousand plus citizens have died from COVID-19 with only the most tepid and unfeeling response from our White House,” said Springsteen on the June 2020 broadcast of his “From My Home to Yours” show. “As of today, our Black citizens continue to be killed unnecessarily by our police on the streets of America and as of this broadcast, the country was on fire and in chaos.”

Bruce Springsteen and former President Barack Obama teamed for the “Renegades: Born in the USA” podcast and book.

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Chris Jordan, a Jersey Shore native, covers entertainment and features for the USA Today Network New Jersey. Contact him at @chrisfhjordan; cjordan@app.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Donald Trump claims his crowds are bigger than Springsteen crowds