Trump praises CIA, fights with media
On his first full day in office, President Donald Trump on Saturday berated the media over its coverage of his inauguration and turned a bridge-building first visit to CIA headquarters into an airing of grievances about “dishonest” journalists.
Yet it was Trump who spread inaccuracies about the size of the crowds at his swearing in.
Standing in front of a memorial for fallen CIA agents, Trump assured intelligence officials, “I am so behind you.” He made no mention of his repeated criticism of the intelligence agencies following the election, including his public challenges of their high-confidence assessment that Russia meddled in the White House race to help him win.
Instead, he blamed any suggestion of a “feud” on the media.
Following his private meeting with CIA leaders, Trump said the U.S. had been “restrained” in its efforts to fight terrorism, calling the threat “a level of evil we haven’t seen.”
But Trump appeared focused on settling scores with the media.
He defensively touted the crowd size for his swearing-in ceremony, wrongly claiming the throngs stretched “all the way back to the Washington Monument.” Photos and video clearly showed the crowd stopping well short of the landmark.
Trump’s visit took place as throngs of women descended on Washington and other cities around the world for marches organized to push back against the new president.
The Washington rally alone attracted more than 500,000 people by the unofficial estimate of city officials. It appeared to be more people than attended Trump’s inauguration on Friday, but there were no comparable numbers. The city did not release an estimate for the inauguration. The National Park Service does not provide crowd counts.
On Saturday, Trump claimed the inaugural crowds topped 1 million, offering no evidence.