Trump, spokesman slam U.S. media over inaugural crowd coverage

international | politics / elections | news report

Sunday January 22, 2017 07:29

by afpRappler

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 Trump asserted

WASHINGTON DC, USA – Donald Trump and his chief spokesman launched an unprecedented assault on the media Saturday, January 21, for a US president's first full day in office, accusing reporters of downplaying the turnout at his inauguration.

Trump, visiting the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in nearby Langley, Virginia, insisted against all evidence that he drew 1.5 million people to his Friday (January 20) swearing-in ceremony.

"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," he added.

Trump said one network estimated turnout at 250,000.

"Now, that's not bad. But it's a lie," Trump 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 ARE GOING TO PAY A BIG PRICE," said 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 JOURNALISTS SEATED BEFORE HIM FOR "DELIBERATELY FALSE REPORTING" on crowd size.

"THIS WAS THE LARGEST AUDIENCE TO EVER WITNESS AN INAUGURATION, PERIOD!" 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."

SPICER LEFT THE BRIEFING WITHOUT TAKING ANY 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 Trump's inauguration Friday, about half of the 2009 crowd.

'Packed'

Spicer appeared eager to lay down the new law with the press, whom his boss repeatedly criticized on the campaign trail and EVEN BRANDED MAINSTREAM MEDIA OUTLETS "FAKE NEWS".

The intensity of Spicer's delivery suggested he and 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 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 Trump asserted.

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

Trump, standing in front of a spot sacred to the CIA – a wall with stars honoring employees killed while serving the country – proclaimed he is 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 Friday's 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.

The outrage over crowd size came on a day that as many as two million people flooded into streets of cities across the United States in peaceful but passionate women-led protests against the new commander-in-chief.

At the main "Women's March on Washington," organizers put the projected turnout at half a million.

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Comments (2 of 2)

Soros links to women's march

by lefty

Mon Jan 23, 2017 02:07

George Soros linked to women's march

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-22/ex-wsj-reporte...ngton

Soros lost 25 million backing Hillary clinton and a reported near 1 billion shortiong the market after Trump won.

It's nice too see the PC brigade so energised and out on the streets protesting a silly event like the inauguration
after 8 years ignoring every horror and atrocity implemented by Obama

Libya
Ukraine
Arming ISIS in Syria
Drone warfare
The Snowden revelations
arming the Saudis to bomb Yemen
not closing Guantanamo like he promised
renewing the cold war with Russia
etc etc

Trump is certainly a bit of a fool, and not liked much by either the elites or the MSM, but Obama was a silver tongued nasty psychopathic snake who served empire and corporates and financial terrorists well (which explains their huge funding of his campaign) while throwing the black community and the poor under the bus and being at war every single day of his presidency, all while getting a free pass from the PC left who didn't want to be seen protesting a black president as that might be construed as being racist.

The machine always operates

by moderate slightly left

Sat Jan 28, 2017 10:59

When I read this succinct, stinging description 'Obama was a silver-tongued nasty psychopathic snake' who served corporate and military industrial interests etc, I winced somewhat. Nevertheless, I have to agree that Obama talked nice and exercised executive power in pursuit of lethal interests globally. I think Hillary Clinton would have done the same if she had been elected. So as an observer in Ireland I rooted emotionally for neither Trump nor Clinton, not that my personal emotions could in any way influence the outcome of the US presidential election. No matter what candidate is elected to the White House, there is a permanent machine of hidden government, based in the State Department, the CIA, the Department of Trade and other branches of what we call the civil service i.e. the silent permanent government that can change a few things here and there according to directives from the current administration; but continually operates right-of-centre economic and social policies that don't upset the rule of corporations and other interests that dominate society.

We in Ireland need to be aware that mainstream politicians make speeches and laws about 'equality', pluralism and other nice-sounding buzzwords - the mainstream media too, notably Independent Newspapers, always a bastion of conservative economic systems. When it comes to crunch issues affecting daily living standards of the poor and the precarious-incomed, you can be sure that Independent Newspapers, the Tirish Himes and the talking heads on radio and TV will rally to conservative interests nationally and internationally. Don't be kidded when they seem to say the right-on things about abortion, gay rights, ethnic fairness and the rest of it. Plus ca change... rien ne change.

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Trump, spokesman slam U.S. media over inaugural crowd coverage

Comments (2 of 2)