Following a National Park Service suggestion that turnout for President Trump’s inauguration last Friday was smaller than former President Barack Obama’s ceremony in 2009, the newly minted president ordered the NPS director produce additional photos of the inauguration, according to a report Thursday.
Trump’s aim was to disprove media reports that his inauguration had a lower rate of attendance than Obama’s.
NPS Director Michael Reynolds was contacted by the White House on Saturday morning and asked to call a number they gave him, said the report. When Reynolds dialed in, he was transferred to Trump, who asked if his agency could help prove the press lied about attendance.
Trump also told Reynolds he was upset about a tweet the agency had posted a day earlier, comparing Obama’s 2009 inauguration to Trump’s with side-by-side images.
The NPS emailed the administration additional photos, though they did not show a greater number of people on the National Mall than earlier images. Throughout the weekend, Trump insisted more than 1 million attended his inauguration, shy of Obama’s 1.8 million in 2009, according to the Washington Post.
Trump has often touted turnout numbers to campaign rallies and post-election “thank you” events, taking a deep interest in how he is perceived on social media and by the press.
On Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer remained adamant about inauguration numbers, telling reporters it had the highest viewing numbers ever reported, slightly different than the issue of the number of attendees to the actual event.
Since last weekend, components of the Interior Department, and specifically the NPS, have protested Trump in subtle ways. The Badlands and Death Valley Parks Services both posted messages on Twitter this week calling attention to climate change, a concern Trump has said is a non-issue.
