"This started out tonight being a small little concert, and then we had the idea maybe we'll do it in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I don't know if it's ever been done before," Trump said. "But if it has, very seldom. And the people came by the thousands and thousands, and here we are tonight, all the way back. All the way back."

At a dinner for campaign donors later on Thursday, Trump doubled down on his claim that the concert was unprecedented.

"We thought it would be a small concert and tens of thousands of people were there," Trump said. "It went all the way to the back. They never had so many people. And very few people ever had a concert at the Lincoln Memorial."