“Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that,” Kellyanne Conway said.
It was quite a jerky start for President Trump on the first day at Oval office, as he took along with him the backlog of the fierce election campaign, during which he employed rhetoric that hurt the sentiments of many groups of Americans.
Trump, who lost the popular votes to Hilary Clinton, was on the defensive within 8 hours after he took control of the Resolute desk.
Trump, after taking oath as the 45th President of the United States, took up a quarrel with the media over the number of people who attended his swearing-in ceremony.
The new occupant of the White House fumed over the comparison done by several media organizations, which according to him, is an attempt to play down his popularity through “dishonest” reporting.
Reince Priebus, the new White House Chief of Staff, attacked the media on Fox News for its “obsession to delegitimize this president.” he added: “We are not going to sit around and let it happen.”
“I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth. They sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community,” Trump said during his visit to CIA headquarters.
Many political analysts had thought Trump would discipline himself after becoming the president. However, that was not be the case.
Sean Spicer, the new White House press secretary, berated the media for reporting the low turnout during the inaugural ceremony.
Spicer, who provided no official record of the number of people who attended the ceremony, said that more people watched it live on TV than ever.
Spicer turned his mike against the media without taking any questions. He said attempts to “lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration” were “shameful and wrong”.
Trump’s second day at the White House witnessed massive protests by hundreds of thousands of people.
An estimated more than 2.5 million people participated in the anti-Trump march across the US, defending women’s rights and opposing a range of policies of the new president.
According to CNN, the protesters who gather in Washington, DC, alone numbered more than half a million and similar marches were held in 15 major cities in the US. There are also reports about smaller marchers being held across the world.
Taking a dig at the celebrities who attended the activist, such as Gloria Steinem, singer Madonna, actors Ashley Judd, Scralett Johansson, America Ferrara and Jake Gyllenhaal, Trump said “why didn’t they vote”
“Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. But I know this won’t change anything. We cannot fall into despair,” Madonna said at the march in New York City, Rolling Stone magazine reported.
Trump in a re-conciliatory tweet wrote: “Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don’t always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views.”
Madonna later clarified that she didn’t mean she wanted to “literally” blow up the White House.
“I am a nasty woman, but not as nasty as a man who looked like he bathes in Cheeto dust. I’m not nasty, like the combo of Trump and Pence being served up to me in my voting booth. I’m nasty like the battles my grandmothers fought to get me into that voting booth,” Judd said reciting a poem written by a 19-year-old about Trump calling Clinton a nasty woman.
Standing by her boss, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s senior counselor, tried to defend Spicer’s words, telling NBC’s Chuck Todd that people voted for Trump because they no more believed in the media.
“Don’t be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck. You’re saying it’s a falsehood… Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that,” she said.
“Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods,” replied Todd.