On his first full day in office, President Donald Trump’s administration focused primarily on arguing with the press about the size of the audience at his inauguration the day before. Photos shared via social media comparing the number of people in attendance at former President Barack Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009 and Friday’s event shows a vast difference in attendance size.
Saturday while visiting the Central Intelligence Office (CIA), Trump claimed that the attendance on Friday was somewhere between 1 million to 1.5 million. He did suggest the possibility of rain kept some people home, but given the fact it was about 20 degrees colder in 2009, a light drizzle would likely not be a deterrent to witness history.
“So, we caught them,” Trump said, accusing the media of lying. “And we caught them in a beauty and I think they’re going to pay a big price.”
He did not elaborate on how the media would pay for their alleged lie. However, given recent discussions suggesting the White House press corp might lose their space in the White House, this is not surprising. Also, at his first press conference, Trump referred to CNN network as fake news and refused to answer their questions.
White House press briefing features rant against media reporting
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer lectured the press on their usage of Twitter to erroneously report that the bust of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was removed from the Oval Office, which it was not. Also, he claims the photos of the inauguration crowd size were framed deliberately in a way to give a false impression fewer people attended.
“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period,” according to Spicer. He also claimed this was the first time the white tarp was used to protect the grass, which is not correct.
The photos shared via social media provides a side-by-side comparison of the attendance in 2009, for Obama’s first inauguration, and Friday for Trump’s. Also, the Metro Twitter profile provided data on how many train rides were taken to the area on Friday in comparsion to the other recent inaugurations.
