Donald Trump on Friday spent about 25 minutes berating the “dishonest media” during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, doubling down on his claim that the press is the lying “enemy of the American people.” In the same breath, the president told a few whoppers of his own—but none was more glaring than his claim that there were lines “six blocks long” of people waiting outside to get into the conference hall to see him speak.

“By the way, you folks are in here, the place is packed,” Trump said in a speech that also covered Obamacare, infrastructure issues, and the national debt. “There are lines that go back six blocks, and I tell you that because you won’t read about it, okay? But there are lines that go back six blocks.”

I was there. There was literally no line. I parked a block away and walked right in a few minutes before it was scheduled to start.

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CPAC—the annual gathering of the country’s conservatives—is held at a conference center in National Harbor, Maryland, just south of Washington D.C. It’s a tiny resort town that hardly even stretches six blocks in any direction. With the exception of the army of Secret Service officers, local police and a helicopter buzzing overhead, the streets were nearly empty when I arrived at 9:45 a.m. for Trump’s scheduled 10:15 a.m. speech.

The only noticeable commotion near the conference hall was about two dozen protestors yelling “fuck Trump” whenever someone with a “Make America Great Again” hat walked by. One Trump fanboy in a business suit and a MAGA hat responded by yelling back “we’re gonna build a fucking wall, fuckers!” There were also about seven people in front of the convention hall with signs that read “Blacks For Trump.”

The "crowd" outside Trump's CPAC speech. Credit: James King

Once inside the conference center, I walked through a lobby and up an escalator, at the top of which the Secret Service had setup its perimeter and was ushering people through metal detectors. There was no line there either — I showed my ID, emptied my pockets, handed them my computer and walked through. No line. No problem.

Trump held his speech in the ballroom, next to media row, a long hallway occupied by broadcast and radio journalists covering the event. There were about 75 people in the hallway walking around, chatting and drinking coffee. The ballroom was filled to capacity by the time Trump spoke. I was then told by the leader of the free world that there were lines of people six-blocks-long on the streets I had just navigated to get into the conference hall to see his speech.

If these lines the president claimed to have seen existed, they were invisible. And I was not the only person in attendance who noticed:

These are the entrances to the hotel where Trump just claimed people were lined up six blocks waiting to get in #CPAC2017 pic.twitter.com/zoYUAXS4sy — Gabrielle Bluestone (@g_bluestone) February 24, 2017