President Trump on crowd size at inauguration: “It looked like a million and a half people.” https://t.co/U5pWhBBMzt https://t.co/NX6vI6UTHR
— CNN (@CNN) January 21, 2017
President Trump on Saturday defended the size of the crowd that attended his inauguration the previous day, accusing the media of lying about the numbers.
“We had a massive field of people, you saw that. Packed,” Trump said during remarks at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Va.
“I get up this morning and 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. They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there,” he added.
{mosads}Following Trump’s inauguration, multiple publications noted that the size of the crowd was smaller than Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.
Trump speculated that the gloomy conditions on Friday might have dispersed the crowds, but said that the rain did not start until after he was done with his speech.
“It was almost raining, the rain should have scared them away but God looked down and he said ‘we are not going to let it rain on your speech,'” Trump joked.
“First line I got hit by a couple of drops, and I said ‘oh this is — this is too bad, but we will go right through it.’ But the truth is that it stopped immediately, it was amazing. And then it became really sunny. Then I walked off and it poured right after I left,” Trump maintained.
The president said that the media’s estimation of a 250,000 people crowd, although “not bad,” was “a lie.”
“Honestly it looked like a million and half people, whatever it was it was. But it went all the way back to the Washington Monument … 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, but its a lie,” Trump said.
Democrats knocked Trump for “ranting about crowd sizes on the National Mall” during his remarks on the first full day of his presidency.
“After he finished ranting about crowd sizes on the National Mall, I hope President Trump sat down for an interview with the CIA to help with their investigation into his team’s possible collusion with the Kremlin to win the election,” Democratic National Committee (DNC) senior adviser Zac Petkanas said in an statement.
“Next, he can sit down with the FBI who have sought warrants to monitor his team for the same reason,” he added.
Updated: 4:25 p.m.