President Donald Trump’s Press Secretary Sean Spicer became a news story himself when he incredibly claimed that the new president’s inaugural viewing audience was the biggest in history.
Aerial footage comparing the inaugural crowds of Barack Obama and Trump show a vastly larger in-person audience for Obama. Politico counted three other factual misstatements by Spicer, including on transit figure comparisons.
Spicer immediately launched into an angry barrage at the media in the same press conference, in which he didn’t take questions. “Some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting,” he alleged, before making statements that aerial photos contradict. Not surprisingly, then, the former Republican National Committee press spokesman found himself the butt of jokes and the subject of Twitter memes.
However, despite the joking around, many people felt the Spicer comment was a big problem and a bad warning sign.
Or just not worth talking about at all.
What Spicer actually said is this: “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.” According to Politico, there’s no real way to calculate global viewing audience but “at least four previous presidents drew bigger domestic TV audiences than Trump.” CBS reported that Nielsen ratings show about 30.6 million people watched the Trump inauguration, compared to 38 million who watched Obama’s. And then there are those shots of the Mall:
Spicer also said “no one had numbers.”
He claimed that photographs of the inaugural proceedings were “intentionally framed” to minimize “the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall.” He said it was the first time that floor coverings were used to cover the grass on the Mall, highlighting areas where people were not standing. But it wasn’t the first time floor coverings were used; CNN reported they were used for Obama’s 2013 Inauguration.
The hashtags #SpicerFacts and #SpicerSays were created to mock Spicer, whose press conference came the day after Trump was sworn in as the nation’s 45th president.
Here are some of the best/funniest Sean Spicer memes and Tweets. Many of them came up with statements that were prima facie ridiculous.
Some compared Spicer to Baghdad Bob, the infamous Iraqi propagandist.
Others found different analogies.
This was the counter punch:
You can watch Spicer’s press conference here: