‘Fake news’: crowd count blasted

US President Donald Trump and his chief spokesman launched an unprecedented assault on the media yesterday.

Donald and Melania Trump with Mike and Karen Pence at the National Cathedral yesterday. Son Donald Trump Jr and his wife Vanessa Trump are behind the President.

Donald Trump and his chief spokesman launched an unprecedented assault on the media yesterday for a US president’s first full day in office, accusing reporters of downplaying the turnout at his inauguration.

Mr Trump, visiting CIA headquarters in nearby Langley, ­Virginia, insisted against all ­evidence that he drew 1.5 million people to his swearing-in ­ceremony on Saturday.

“I made a speech. I looked out, the field was, it looked like a ­million, million and a half people,” he told CIA staff.

“They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there. And they said, ­Donald Trump did not draw well.”

Mr Trump said one network ­estimated turnout at 250,000.

“Now, that’s not bad. But it’s a lie,” he said.

He falsely claimed there were people stretching from the steps of the Capitol, where he spoke, along 20 blocks back to the Washington Monument. “So we caught them and we caught them in a beauty and I think they’re going to pay a big price,” said Mr Trump.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer doubled down on the accusation, using his first press conference in the White House briefing room to blast the journalists seated before him for “deliberately false reporting” on crowd size. “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period!” Mr Spicer said, his loud and abrasive tone catching nearly everyone in the room off guard.

“These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong.”

Mr Spicer left the briefing without taking questions.

An estimated 1.8 million people flooded the National Mall area in 2009 when Barack Obama was first sworn in as president, according to federal and local agencies at the time.

Washington authorities reportedly predicted 800,000 to 900,000 would attend Mr Trump’s inauguration, about half of the 2009 crowd.

Mr Spicer appeared eager to lay down the new law with the press, whom his boss repeatedly criticised on the campaign trail and even branded mainstream media outlets “fake news”. The intensity of Mr Spicer’s delivery suggested he and Mr Trump were furious at the coverage of the inauguration, which many outlets said fell well short of Obama’s 2009 inaugural in terms of crowd size.

A comparison of aerial photos taken on January 20, 2009 and on Friday appear to bear that out.

Washington city authorities do not provide official crowd counts but TV footage clearly showed the gathering did not stretch all the way to the Washington Monument as Mr Trump asserted.

Mr Trump’s latest attack on the media came during a rambling aside as he visited CIA headquarters on a fence-mending ­mission after his rejection of the assessment by US intelligence agencies that Russia meddled to try to help him win the November election.

Mr Trump, standing in front of a spot sacred to the CIA — a wall with stars honouring employees killed while serving the country — proclaimed he was fully behind the spy agency.

He eventually returned to the issue of media coverage of his ­inauguration and said the National Mall, divided up into sections for the ceremony, was uniformly crammed with people. “You saw that. Packed. I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field. I’m like, wait a minute,” he said.

AFP