Trump claims 1 5m watched him being sworn in

A visibly upset White House press secretary Sean Spicer made journalists wait an hour on Saturday for a five-minute tongue lashing about 'deliberately false reporting' that he said has already become commonplace in the 30-hour-old Trump presidency.

Spicer blasted the White House press corps over a pair of tweets, criticized their coverage of President Donald Trump's afternoon visit with CIA employees, and upbraided them for their editors' decisions to report unconfirmed crowd-counts from Friday's inauguration.

'This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration – period! – both in person and around the globe,' Spicer claimed.





He insisted that no official numbers are available, despite some news outlets' reporting that the total audience in Washington, D.C. was approximately 250,000.

'No one had numbers,' Spicer declared, 'because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any out.'



The pugnacious Trump spokesman boasted that at least 720,000 were present, walking reporters through the crowd capacities of areas along the length of the National Mall, which stretches from the U.S. Capitol to the Washington Monument.

'From the platform where the president was sworn in, to Fourth Street, holds about 250,000 people,' he said.

'From Fourth Street to the media tent is about another 220,000. And from the media tent to the Washington monument, another 250,000 people.'

'All of this space was full when the president took the oath of office,' Spicer told reporters.

Aerial photos from Friday appear to refute this claim, but the press secretary maintained that the digital images that traveled around the world were little more than a trick of the eye.

'This was the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall, he said, referring to white-colored areas that appeared in photos. 'That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past the grass eliminated this visual.'

'This was also the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the [Mall], preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being able to access the Mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past.'

Spicer did not cite any evidence for the claim that 'hundreds of thousands' were unable to enter security checkpoints.

A U.S. Secret Service spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday evening.

In addition, photographs of the National Mall from Obama’s 2013 inauguration show white tarpaulins covering large swaths of the Mall, refuting Spicer’s claim that 'floor coverings' seen Friday were a new phenomenon.

Spicer also noted that Washington's Metro mass-transit system recorded 420,000 riders on Friday, 'which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama's last inaugural.'

He did not mention the possibility that many of those riders were navigating around the Washington metropolitan area in advance Saturday's women's march – an anti-Trump event.

But he warned against 'any attempts to try to count the number of protesters today' by using aerial photos.

Most TV networks concluded on Saturday that the feminist marchers outdrew the president in Washington. In addition, simultaneous marches in dozens of other cities boosted likely participation number well over 1 million.

But Trump's inauguration was seen on television from wire to wire by a far larger number of people around the globe, fascinated by the billionaire who rose to power with an improbable populist message, and followed through on Friday by pledging a return of federal government power 'to the people.'

The new president launched his own attack on the 'dishonest' media earlier in the day at CIA headquarters, telling employees of the spy agency that reported attendance numbers for his swearing-in dramatically undershot the truth.



His declaration suggested that he believes one unnamed television network may have aired an overhead image shot long before the ceremony began.

'We had a massive field of people. You saw that. Packed,' he told the CIA workers.

'I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show 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 looked honestly – it looked like a million and a half people,' Trump said. 'Whatever it was, it was. But it went all the way back to the Washington Monument.'

'And I turn on the thing, and by mistake I get this network, and it showed an empty field. And it said we drew 250,000 people.

'Now, that's not bad,' Trump continued, 'but it's a lie.'