9 Times Donald Trump Claimed People Came To Him With 'Tears In Their Eyes'

Donald Trump isn't a crier. He's said so himself. Given his track record with the truth, one wonders whether the opposite might be true. The president sure does seem to have an obsession with people crying, however. Years ago, while speaking with the Christian Broadcasting Network (via The Washington Post), Trump was asked whether he's ever cried. He responded, "I'm not a big crier. I'm not someone who goes around crying a lot. But I know people like that. I know plenty of people that cry. They're very good people. But I have not been a big crier."

Indeed, Trump appears to know a lot of criers. He regularly brings them up in conversation, and the reason for their tears, according to him, is often his greatness. Even his son, Eric Trump, told Fox News' Sean Hannity in May 2021 that people were coming up to him, crying, because they missed having Trump as their president. "More people have come up to me on the street in the last week and given me hugs, saying, 'We miss him [Trump] so much. I mean, literally, sometimes, Sean, with tears in their eyes," Eric enthused, parroting his father's favorite phrase.

Trump has bragged about people crying in front of him on several occasions during his first term, and he's continued telling these stories during his second. How true most of them are is debatable. The irony is that Trump has made people cry, just not for joy. A senior White House staffer who spoke to the Los Angeles Times after Trump's 2016 victory alleged that White House staffers were crying in the Oval Office as former President Barack Obama addressed them. Needless to say, there's no question that Trump does make people cry — just not necessarily in a good way.

There's no doubt that Trump adores the White House. After all, he's been doing everything in his power to remake the building in his image during his second term. The president, however, seems to be projecting some of his admiration onto unnamed business officials, one of whom apparently became very emotional when he saw the Oval Office for the first time.

During an interview with CBS's "Face the Nation" in May 2017, Trump babbled about how much he loves living at the White House and that others think it's the most wonderful place on earth. "Big people from big companies have been to the White House," Trump boasted during the interview, claiming that one of these important people admitted to never having been inside the Oval Office. Trump said he immediately remedied that. "I said, 'Come on, I'll bring you to the Oval Office.' The person came into the Oval Office and started to cry. This is a tough person by the way. Came into the Oval Office and started to cry," the president alleged. "Now, this — a person with a magnificent office with beautiful glass walls and everything else. You understand. You've seen those offices before. But there is something very special about this space."

Had he said the person cried upon entering the Oval in 2025, one could have argued that their tears were from immense grief upon witnessing the tacky changes Trump has made to the Oval Office. The president has systematically covered the famous room in gold, even adding gold coasters bearing his last name to the ever-growing list of gleaming objects adorning the room.

Trump has lied about his height countless times, but it's not the only untruth he's told. His claims of people coming to him, crying, have always been questionable, but it wasn't easy to disprove. In one case, however, there was video evidence that the president was making it all up. In February 2017, Trump signed an executive order that aimed at removing federal protections for wetlands and waterways, which he claimed would largely benefit farmers. This wasn't entirely true since some exemptions already applied to farmers. Real estate developers and oil and gas companies would be the real beneficiaries.

Regardless, Trump was very proud of his work, and during a speech in Iowa in 2019, reminisced about signing the executive order, telling the crowd, "I signed that, and behind me, I had home builders and farmers mostly, and ranchers, and many of them never cried in their life, including when they were born, and they were crying. Yeah, it's true, though, they were crying behind me," Trump bragged (via LiveNOW).

Thanks to widely available video footage of that day, it is easy to fact-check the president's crying claims. While he was indeed surrounded by the people who would benefit from the executive order, none of them could be seen crying. In fact, not a single tear appears to have been shed that day. Unless the folks Trump was referring to were quietly crying out of the shot, it's safe to say he was making the whole thing up.

A Trump biographer has previously given insight into the president's gift of gab, and it sounds exhausting. Almost as tiring as being an American citizen who has to repeatedly listen to Trump's claims that people simply can't help but weep in his presence. In 2018, the divisive politician took the theatrics a little too far when he told the same crying tale twice but failed to keep the details the same.

While at his rally in Evansville, Indiana, in September 2018, Trump told the crowd he'd just spoken to some coal miners backstage, who were crying with gratitude for all he'd done. "There were nine... now, these were tough guys," the president droned, per Courier & Press. "But of the nine, eight of them were crying. And I looked at the ninth, crying out of happiness, because they're back. I looked at the ninth guy, I said, 'What's wrong with you? Why aren't you crying? 'I don't cry, sir.' I said, 'That's OK.'"

Trump repeated the same story a few days later to a crowd in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Only, he forgot that the folks who were crying were supposed to be coal miners. This time, he said they were steelworkers. He repeated the story of the nine men, eight of whom were crying, thanking him profusely. "Almost all of them were crying and they were thanking me at the opening of one of the big plants for United States Steel," Trump said, per Roll Call. It might be safe to say that neither of the two incidents the president recounted had occurred.

Trump and former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman have a tense relationship, to put it mildly. Omarosa was a loyal sycophant (and a former "The Apprentice" contestant) until she was fired from her job as communications director and assistant to the president during Trump's first term. Omarosa has since directed some harsh words at Trump in her 2018 book, "Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House." This did not go down so well with the commander-in-chief, who took to X in a series of scathing posts to discredit some of the damaging claims Omarosa made in the tome.

"Wacky Omarosa, who got fired 3 times on The Apprentice, now got fired for the last time. She never made it, never will. She begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her," Trump wrote. He added that he hired her and put up with her incompetence because "she only said GREAT things about me." In a subsequent tweet, the president again claimed that Omarosa was a crier. "When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn't work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog!" he penned.

Omarosa's book might have made Trump cry. Her allegations were bad for the divisive politician's image. She characterized him as a racist, sexist, and bigoted man for whom lying comes as easily as breathing. She also noted that Trump, who has bragged about being a Christian, isn't, and that he's never picked up a Bible. "It might as well be a paper brick to him," she wrote (via The Guardian).

Everyone and their mother knows that Trump despises the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare. Trump, whose ego often takes the wheel when he names things, likely can't stand that his predecessor's name remains on people's lips courtesy of the ACA, and he's done everything in his power to have it abolished, with little success thus far. He's touted his contempt for the program on numerous occasions, however. One such instance was at a conservative political action conference in Maryland in February 2018, where the president, once again, claimed that people literally came to him, weeping, because of Obamacare.

"I know people came up to me with tears in their eyes; they're saying, I'm forced to pay not to have healthcare. Very unfair," Trump alleged (via the White House). "And, by the way, we're having tremendous plans coming out now — healthcare plans — at a fraction of the cost that are much better than Obamacare." Again, the president's claims about the crying people were questionable; however, his resentment for Obamacare is not.

Trump's second term has seen him continue to try to dismantle Obamacare. Speaking at a rally in January 2026, he told the crowd, "I recently introduced my plan to repair the damage of the (un)Affordable Care Act, the worst disaster," he said. "It's bad healthcare," per Fox26.

Trump loves giving himself a pat on the back, even if it means people have to cry in the process. At a 2018 rally, he once again told the crowd a story of crying people. These people, Trump said, were deeply moved by his strategies to make America great again. The president was touting his accomplishments and criticizing the media for not reporting on his wonderful feats. "They don't believe it. They don't believe it. And they don't want to report it," he told the crowd, per The American Presidency Project, adding that he will get the word out himself. He then launched into another crying tale.

"We were losing our country," he told his audience. "I've had so many people come up to me, great people, some of them strong and tough — and, you know, these aren't emotional people — they have tears in their eyes, say, Mr. President — I saw one tonight, came up to me, a man, strong, tough cookie, I wouldn't want to fight him, OK? And he said, 'Mr. President — he's crying — he said, 'Thank you for saving our country.' So many people say that. So many people," Trump drawled.

Trump will use any tactic to convince his loyal supporters that the lack of reporting on his accomplishments as president is because of a biased media. He did the same thing during his second term, as both his supporters and critics called for the release of the Epstein files. White House staff, the president included, painted it as a Democrat orchestration to distract from his accomplishments. No tall tales of crying people have been implemented in an attempt at damage control. Yet.

The ups and downs of Trump and Ron DeSantis' relationship are well-documented, and the president hasn't eschewed opportunities to throw some shade at his fellow Republican politician. In February 2023, while speaking on "The Hugh Hewitt Show," Trump claimed that he's the reason DeSantis emerged as the victor in Florida's 2018 gubernatorial race. He bragged that the race wasn't going DeSantis' way and that he was getting desperate, so he came to Trump for help. "He was dead. He was leaving the race ... and he begged me — begged me for an endorsement," the president claimed, adding, "[He had] tears coming down from his eyes" via the Independent.

During a March 2023 rally, Trump, likely anticipating that DeSantis would be throwing his hat in the ring for the presidency come 2024, tried to knock him down a peg during a rally, again touting how his endorsement was the reason DeSantis became governor. "I endorsed him and he became like a rocket ship," the president said, per Forbes Breaking News. "Within one day, the race was over. He got the nomination."

DeSantis, meanwhile, wasn't exactly thrilled with how Trump was portraying him to the public. He told Megyn Kelly that Trump was wildly exaggerating the encounter. "Do you believe that? You tell me," DeSantis said about Trump's claims that he was tearily begging for an endorsement, per Florida Politics. "I mean, come on, this was, you know, in public. "I think we were on Air Force One, and I said, 'Hey, I'm thinking about running. Will you support me? Will you tweet for me?' And he's like, 'Yeah, I'll tweet for you.' And that was it."

In 2023, Trump found himself in hot water. He was facing 34 felony charges, and his arrest in April of that year made headlines. In the aftermath, he sat down with the Trump-friendly network, Fox News, to discuss the day of his arrest, and the president painted a picture of a crying congregation of court officials, who were apparently heartbroken to see their former president indicted. "Tears were pouring down their eyes," Trump said of the court officials. "They signed me in and I'll tell you people were crying ... It's a tough, tough place and they were crying. They were actually crying. They said, 'I'm sorry,'" he continued, per the BBC.

Sources later told Yahoo News (via BBC) that no tears were involved. "There were zero people crying. There were zero people saying 'I'm sorry,'" the source alleged. Additionally, The Independent reported that video footage from that day proved that the source's claims were true. In fact, court staff appeared rather hostile to Trump, with one staff member actually deliberately refraining from holding a door for the divisive politician as he entered the courtroom. If anyone had, in fact, been crying, it might have been tears of joy at finally seeing some justice being served.

Reporters have noted that whenever Trump tells you people were crying in his presence for one reason or another, it's a safe bet that the entire story is a work of fiction. It's no secret that Trump can't keep his ego in check and has practically begged the American people to love him. So, it seems in the fictional world the president has created in his head, people crying to him are as good as a confession of their undying love. It's no wonder he so frequently tells stories of folks unable to keep their tears at bay in his presence.

Speaking at a rally in January 2026, the president told the crowd, "I just left a great group of people from Iowa and half of them were crying as they talked to me. I don't think they're crying because I'm doing a bad job. They said, 'Sir, you brought our country back.' Crying crying" (via X). Trump then got weird and recounted how a woman "grabbed him" and cried on his shoulder, "Her tears are pouring all over my beautiful suit," he added.

Pundits questioned the story's authenticity. "Apparently a woman just grabbed the president and cried all over him, but nobody else saw it or got it on video, and the secret service just lets random people grab the president and cry on him," one noted on X. "Another one of his fake 'sir' stories," someone else commented.