This pair of photos shows a view of the crowd on the National Mall at the inaugurations of President Donald Trump, below, on Jan. 20, 2017. Photo / AP
This pair of photos shows a view of the crowd on the National Mall at the inaugurations of President Donald Trump, below, on Jan. 20, 2017. Photo / AP
Apparently, it was the floor coverings.
Donald Trump and his chief spokesman launched an unprecedented assault on the media today on the US president's first full day in office, accusing reporters of downplaying the turnout at his inauguration.
In the process, they failed to acknowledge post-inauguration protests which drew millions around the world.
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 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're going to pay a big price," said Trump.
This pair of photos shows a view of the crowd on the National Mall at the inaugurations of President Barack Obama, above, and President Donald Trump, below. Photo / AP
FLOOR COVERINGS HIGHLIGHTED "WHERE PEOPLE ARE NOT STANDING"
Photos taken of the Mall on Friday showed large swathes of empty space compared to Barack Obama's inauguration eight years ago.
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!" 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 questions.
"Photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, one particular tweet minimised the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall.
"This was the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings were used to protect the grass. That had the effect of highlighting areas where people are not standing, while in years past, the grass eliminated this visual."
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.
Press secretary says floor coverings on National Mall made it appear that fewer people were at Trump inauguration https://t.co/3TB5cnNRMH
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 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.
Spicer left the briefing without taking questions, as journalists called on him to comment on the Women's March.
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.
An image of the inauguration of President Donald Trump is displayed behind White House press secretary Sean Spicer as he speaks at the White House. Photo / AP
"IT WAS PACKED": TRUMP
Trump's latest attack on news organisations 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 proclaimed he was fully behind the spy agency, saying "I am so behind you".
But his speech at the CIA's Virginia headquarters, which moved to reignite this war with the media over reporting of the size of the crowd at his inauguration, left a former boss of the intelligence agency fuming.
"Former CIA Director Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Donald Trump's despicable display of self-aggrandisement in front of CIA's Memorial Wall of Agency heroes," former CIA director John Brennan's former deputy chief of staff Nick Shapiro said in a statement.
"Brennan says that Trump should be ashamed of himself."
Predictably, Twitter lit up after President Trump's and Spicer's attacks.
Actor and outspoken Trump critic Olivia Wilde led the charge, tweeting: "Trump's attempt to spin his pathetic inaugural turnout numbers is some straight up Kim Jong Un sh#t".
Australian comedian Wil Anderson observed: "The President also has the biggest hands of any President ever. Period."
Veteran British journalist Richard Hall was scathing with a series of tweets.
"Donald Trump's @PressSec is using his first White House briefing to literally shout at the press. This is some Gaddafi-level stuff," Hall began.
"This is an angry, disjointed rant. He left without taking questions," he continued.
"This administration will be in bunker mode every day for as long as it lasts," he concluded.
For others, the irony of the pair disputing inauguration crowd figures but not commenting on millions protesting at Women's Marches worldwide was not lost: "I just love that #trump chose to focus press attention on #crowdestimate numbers when the worlds streets are literally full of #women's march", posted one user.
The main "Women's March on Washington," protest drew an estimated half million people and is also thought to have exceeded the inauguration's turnout.
