Trump Accuses Women’s March Protesters of Not Voting, White House to Fight Media ‘Tooth and Nail’
US President Donald Trump has offered a scattershot response to the sweeping protests against his new administration that followed his inauguration, undermining the public opposition and then defending demonstrators’ rights a short time later.
Millions of people from all over the world marched at more than 600 demonstrations in 60 countries over the weekend to express concern that women’s rights will be eroded under Mr Trump. The new US President offered his first responses on Twitter, accusing those marching in the events of not voting. People packed into America’s capital for the Women’s March on Washington, as hundreds of other marches happened across America.
A city official in Washington said the turnout estimate was at 500,000 people, more than double the initial predictions, forcing organisers to abandon plans to march towards the White House.
Figures from transport officials in Washington suggested more people attended the march than came for Mr Trump’s inauguration. So many people turned up to the march in Chicago that organisers cancelled a planned march through the city’s downtown, while marches in New York and Philadelphia also experienced larger-than-expected crowds.
Organisers said 750,000 people attended the march in Los Angeles — a huge increase on the 150,000 originally expected. Former Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton, praised those attending the marches on
Twitter, reviving her campaign slogan “Stronger Together”. Women’s marches also took place in Australia and New Zealand on Saturday, with an estimated 2000 to 3000 people marching through the streets of Sydney alone.
White House vows to fight media ‘tooth and nail’
Mr Trump spent his first day in office berating the media over their coverage of his inauguration, using a bridge-building visit to CIA headquarters on Saturday to air grievances about “dishonest” journalists and overstating the size of the crowd that gathered on the National Mall as he took the oath of office. Mr Trump said throngs “went all the way back to the Washington monument,” despite photos and live video showing the crowd stopping well short of the landmark. In Sunday morning interviews, top advisers defended Mr Trump’s anger at journalists for correctly reporting that his inauguration drew a smaller crowd than Barack Obama did eight years ago.
Chief of staff, Reince Priebus, told Fox News that Mr Trump was trying to keep the media “honest” when they levied charges of false reporting the day before.
“The point is not the crowd size. The point is the attacks and the attempt to delegitimise this President in one day. And we’re not going to sit around and take it,” Mr Priebus said. No single issue has dominated the new administration’s public discourse as much as the news media’s treatment of Mr Trump. He repeated White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer’s, charges on Saturday that the media had manipulated photographs of the National Mall to show smaller crowds on Friday. Asked on NBC’s Meet the Press why Mr Spicer was uttering provable falsehoods, White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway fired back.
“If we are going to keep referring to our Press Secretary in those types of terms I think that we are going to rethink our relationship here,” she said. Ms Conway responded to criticism the new administration was focusing on crowds rather than on significant domestic and foreign policy issues by saying: “We feel compelled to go out and clear the air and put alternative facts out there.” ABC
I was told to wait until Mr Trump takes office because he has no problem with building in Jerusalem. The rules of the game have changed with Donald Trump’s arrival as president. We no longer have our hands tied as in the time of Barack Obama. Meir Turgeman Jerusalem Deputy Mayor