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He said there were 15,000 people present. There were no more than 10,000, probably 9,000 or maybe 8,000.

What are you basing that on? I'm assuming you didn't personally count the people that were there. So how would you know that Trump's count was wrong? I'm assuming his people would have a better idea as they might have turnstile counts.

Thanks for the question. The faculty has 11,300 seats. My estimate is that 2,800 were unavailable, blocked by a curtain. There were scattered vacant seats, maybe 500. That gives 8,000 in seats. It looked like 1,000 standing on the floor. A facility staff member told me the floor was approved for 1,600 so with about a third used for the press section, he agreed 1,000 would be close. So the attendance was around 9,000, with 10,000 being close enough.

This staff member had a window and guessed that about 5,000 were turned away. This validates the number Trump gave, which I realized after I had already given my report. Post 62 said Trump tweeted 10,000 were present and 5,000 turned away. The concern raised in my original post was unwarranted.