US President Donald Trump has attacked the media for accurately reporting on the size of the crowd which attended his inauguration in Washington DC on Friday.
In a speech at the Central Intelligence Agency Mr Trump claimed that news outlets had downplayed how many people had gathered on the National Mall to see him sworn in as president.
“I made a speech. I looked out. The field was - it looked like a million, a million and a half people,” he said on Saturday.
The president went on to say that the 250,000 strong attendance reported by one network was a “lie.”
The “rest of the, you know, 20-block area, all the way back to the Washington Monument was packed,” he said, adding that the media had been caught out for lying for which they would “pay a big price.”
However, all photographs and video from the event show that the crowd did not extend as far as the Washington Monument, and there were in fact large areas reserved for attendees which remained empty throughout the day.
Photos from the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday - and comparisons with former US President Barack Obama’s inaugurations in 2009 and 2013 - show far more people present.
Around 500,000 people are thought to have marched in protest against Mr Trump on the weekend, with other demonstrations in cities across the world.
Mr Obama’s 2009 inauguration is thought to have drawn a record 1.8million people.
After Mr Trump was sworn in on Friday, bleachers down the inaugural parade route were also empty or thinly populated.
Hotels in the city reported vacancies, unusual for an event such as a presidential inauguration, the Associated Press reported, and the Washington’s Metro system Twitter account noted that ridership was down on other inaugurations.
As of 11am on Friday, 193,000 trips had been taken, down on 513,000 trips at the same time on Mr Obama’s inauguration in 2009 and 317,000 for his second in 2013.
Mr Trump’s White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer added to the misleading claims later that day in his debut briefing in the position, scolding journalists for attempts to “lessen the enthusiasm for the inauguration” as “shameful and wrong.”
“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration - period - both in person and around the globe,” without offering any evidence.
It is not known how many people watched the ceremony around the world or the exact size of the crowd, as the National Park Service stopped providing estimates in the 1990s.
However, the Nielsen data and ratings company estimated 31 million people watched the event on television within the US - less than the Obama or Ronald Reagan inaugurations.
