'Put up the picture again': Chris Wallace uses photos to confront Trump chief of staff over false crowd-size claims by Maxwell Tani on Jan 22, 2017, 12:07 PM Advertisement
 Fox News anchor Chris Wallace confronted White House chief of staff Reince Priebus on Sunday over the White House's dubious claims about the size of the crowd at Trump's inauguration. During an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Wallace called White House press secretary Sean Spicer's Saturday briefing "extraordinary," noting that Spicer insisted despite all available evidence that Trump garnered the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration" and did not take any questions. "President Trump said in his inaugural address that every decision he makes will be to benefit American families. How does arguing about crowd size do that?" Wallace asked. Priebus argued that there was a media conspiracy to delegitimize Trump's presidency, claiming that media outlets were incorrect to report on issues including Russia's meddling in the US presidential election. "It really isn't about crowd size. What it's about is honesty in the media," Priebus said. "The media from day one has been talking about delegitimizing the election. Talking about the Russians, talking about everything you can imagine except the fact that we need to move this country forward. Priebus claimed media outlets made sloppy errors. Time Magazine reporter Zeke Miller, for instance, mistakenly sent out a White House pool report on Friday asserting that the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. was removed from the Oval Office, an inaccurate claim that Miller quickly corrected. "This is an explosive accusation which could've had incredible ramifications. ... Turns out it was totally false," Priebus said. "What did the media say? 'Oh, our bad.'" But Wallace continued to press Priebus, saying Trump made two separate inaccurate claims about the size of the inaugural crowd during an appearance at CIA headquarters on Saturday. Wallace also posted side-by-side pictures of Obama and Trump's inaugurations. "You talk about honesty. You say this is about honesty. But there's another issue here though, Reince, and that is the president's honest. Two things he said yesterday were just flat wrong," Wallace said. "Take a look at those pictures," Wallace continued, putting up the pictures of Obama's 2009 inauguration and Trump's on Friday. "Which one is bigger?" "You're also not saying that that picture was taken before he was even speaking," Priebus replied. "I was there, I was there on the mall," Wallace interjected. "I was there too, Chris," Priebus said. Wallace dubbed the conversation "ridiculous," but when Priebus insisted that crowds stretched from the congressional steps to the Washington Monument, Wallace urged his producers to "put up the picture again." "You can keep putting the picture up, wait a second. I could take an aerial picture right now, Chris, and I can say, 'Look at the difference. If you're not comparing apples to apples, it doesn't matter," Priebus replied. After more back-and-forth, Wallace eventually said the White House team was responsible for arguing about the size of the crowd and could have highlighted other priorities instead. "You're the ones who did it," Wallace said when Priebus dismissed the media for not covering the "substance" of Trump's remarks. "He could've given a news conference yesterday, talked about the agenda, talked about the executive actions he's going to sign. He talked about crowd sizes," Wallace said. Watch part of the exchange below, via Fox News: SEE ALSO: 'We can't be seen as trapped in that kind of fight': A dark-horse DNC chair candidate doesn't want to rehash the 2016 primary
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