Former President Donald Trump said Thursday he probably spoke to a bigger crowd on Jan. 6, 2021, than the crowd at the Rev. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.

Mr. Trump made the comparison during a segment of a Mar-a-Lago news conference in which he was challenged about his role in the Jan. 6 attack.

The former president said he urged his supporters to protest peacefully and patriotically as they contested President Biden’s win in 2020.

“I think those people were treated very harshly,” Mr. Trump said of the rioters, before boasting about the large crowd at the White House-adjacent Ellipse before the attack.

He said it was his largest crowd ever and might have been larger than King’s when you study pictures of the crowds.

“We actually had more people,” Mr. Trump said. “And I’m OK with it because I liked Dr. Martin Luther King.”

• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.