Trump: 'Dishonest' New York Times reported lower crowd size at rally. So fire department weighs in.

UPDATE 8:42 a.m. May 31: The New York Times offered the following update to its article about President Donald Trump's rally in Nashville:

Original story below

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the New York Times reported a much lower number of attendees at his Nashville, Tennessee, rally Tuesday night than were actually there.

“The Failing and Corrupt @nytimes estimated the crowd last night at '1000 people,' when in fact it was many times that number — and the arena was rockin’," Trump wrote on Twitter. "This is the way they demean and disparage. They are very dishonest people who don't 'get' me, and never did!"

While the Times reported an "audience of about 1,000," a spokesman for the Nashville Fire Department said the number of those in attendance at Municipal Auditorium was much higher than that.

"Our Fire Marshal's office counted around 5,500 people who attended the rally last night," Joseph Pleasant told The Tennessean.

Bob Skoney, general manager of the auditorium, told the paper that capacity for Tuesday’s event was 7,500 to 8,000, although it normally holds 9,900. Many seats were blocked off to make room for crowd risers and "massive American flags behind the stage where the president spoke," The Tennessean added.

What else did Trump say?

The paper reported that during a fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn before the rally, Trump said he heard "we have 12,000 people" waiting to get inside the auditorium — and gave a higher number of seats than the venue holds.

"They have 12,000 seats. We have 12,000 people,” the president said, according to the Tennessean, which cited an audio record obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee.

“We have a lot of people … we can’t get them in. Unless the fire marshal really treats us good,” Trump continued, the paper said. “I will say that we do, we have over 12,000 people standing trying to get in, and most of them are in now but I’m going there to make a speech.”

Here's a clip from Trump's speech:

This story has been updated.