Washington Post reporter apologizes for tweet on crowd size at Trump rally

Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel issued an apology to President Trump on Saturday for tweeting a photo of an empty arena before a Trump rally in Florida that had been taken hours before the event started. 

Weigel responded minutes after a tweet from Trump, who said he had “put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived.”

.@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in. Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo! pic.twitter.com/XAblFGh1ob

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2017

Weigel said he took the tweet down after Daily Mail political editor David Martosko told him he had gotten it wrong. 

“Sure thing: I apologize. I deleted the photo after @dmartosko told me I’d gotten it wrong. Was confused by the image of you walking in the bottom right corner,” he tweeted. 

Sure thing: I apologize. I deleted the photo after @dmartosko told me I’d gotten it wrong. Was confused by the image of you walking in the bottom right corner. https://t.co/fQY7GMNSaD

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 9, 2017

Trump’s attack and Weigel’s subsequent apology come less than 24 hours after Trump ripped CNN and ABC for putting out incorrect reporting that they later apologized for. 

Trump referred to ABC News correspondent Brian Ross as a “fraudster” at the rally, a week after Ross falsely reported that former national security adviser Michael Flynn had directed Trump to contact Russian officials during the campaign.

ABC later corrected the report to say that the president directed Flynn to contact Russia after he was elected. 

“They took this fraudster from ABC, they suspended for a month. They should have fired him for what he wrote. He drove the stock market down 350 points in minutes,” the president said Friday. “I said to everybody, get yourself a lawyer and sue ABC News.”

Trump also took aim at CNN after the network was forced to make a correction on Friday regarding documents Donald Trump Jr. received from WikiLeaks.

“Oh thank you, CNN, thank you so much. You should have been apologizing for the last two years,” Trump said to laughter and cheers in the audience.