Donald Trump didn't waste time before he was on the press' case on Friday, slamming "phony polls" and a "dishonest media" while recalling election 2016 during the evening's post-inauguration Freedom Ball. And he wasted no time firing off on the media on Saturday, January 21, following reports of him having ordered the National Parks Service to suspend it's Twitter activity for leaking a photo of the scant crowd scattering the National Mall during his swearing in.
The newly minted Commander-In-Chief spoke on reports of exceptionally low attendance at the ceremony and parade that followed, while holding a press conference after meeting at CIA headquarters. He insinuated that the photographs being circulated were doctored, stating: "This morning I turn on one of the networks and they showed an empty field. I said wait a minute... I made a speech, I looked out, the field was, it looked like a million, a million and a half people."
It will be weeks before official numbers are tallied but an early estimate published by the Financial Times placed the attendance at 250k. White House spokesperson Sean Spicer took to CNN and MSNBC in defense of the President, calling such stories "deliberately false reporting." It will be tough for the administration to counter critics, as a number of citizens present at the event snapped their own photos of spacious gaps, empty seats, and areas in which the bleachers along the parade route were relatively clear.
Source: youtube.com
