Fact check: Charlotte Area Transit System addresses buses lined up at Kamala Harris rally

The Charlotte Area Transit System says buses parked outside of Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally in Charlotte on Thursday aimed to protect waiting attendees — not transport them.

A now-deleted video posted on X, formerly Twitter, by a Democratic activist of large crowds walking outside Bojangles Coliseum garnered attention because of the line of buses parked along a nearby road. In just a few hours, theories spread on the social media platform that the video was proof Harris’ campaign bused people into the rally.

A Charlotte Area Transit System spokesperson said the buses were a safety barrier.

“As part of CATS support to public safety agencies, CATS has a contingency fleet that is decommissioned and available to use in support of these types of requests from Emergency Management,” CATS spokesman Brett Baldeck wrote in an email to The Charlotte Observer. “This is standard protocol to pre-position these buses when requested.”

Baldeck confirmed CATS provided the same service to Trump for his Charlotte rally earlier this summer at Bojangles Coliseum, and said the vehicles did not transport any people during either event. A post made by Trump on Truth Social in July contained a photo of his rally with the buses similarly configured.

Joe Bruno, a reporter for the Observer’s news partner WSOC-TV, fact checked the claims by posting a helicopter image of a similar bus configuration at Trump’s Charlotte rally.

‘Crowd size matters’

While the original Charlotte rally video is deleted, recordings and screenshots pulled from the video are still making the rounds online and attracting millions of views.

Trump also echoed the bus claims during his rally Thursday night in Tucson, Arizona.

“Her crowds are zero. She’s got no crowds. They bus people in,” he said. “They pay buses to get people in. Nobody here came in on a bus, I guarantee you that. Unless you own it.”

Harris and Trump also went back and forth during this week’s debate about rally attendance. At one point, Harris invited people to attend his rallies so they could see people leaving early. The Harris campaign also put up a digital billboard in Philadelphia ahead of the event, joking that “crowd size matters.”

Harris’ campaign declined to comment about the Charlotte buses.