Trump Aide Kellyanne Conway Invents 'Alternative Facts' Amid Inauguration Crowd Row

'Alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods'.

Donald Trump’s White House administration has wasted little time in defining itself in the post-truth era, with a top aide arguing it used “alternative facts” when faced with claims over the size of the turn-out to Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press where she defended White House press secretary Sean Spicer for telling reporters on Saturday: “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.”

Aerial photos showed that Trump drew a smaller crowd to his inaugural address than President Obama did.

10:34 a.m. exactly, 4 years ago and today. pic.twitter.com/HhoTQqIqsS

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 20, 2017
Kellyanne Conway prepares to appear on the Sunday morning show Meet The Press, from the north lawn at the White House.
Kellyanne Conway prepares to appear on the Sunday morning show Meet The Press, from the north lawn at the White House.
Mark Wilson via Getty Images

This is the exchange on Meet the Press with presenter Chuck Todd, when he said Trump’s media frontman “utters a falsehood”.

TODD: Why did he do that? It undermines the credibility of the entire White House Press Office on day one.

CONWAY: No it doesn’t. Don’t be so overly dramatic about it. Chuck. They’re saying it’s a falsehood and Sean Spicer our press secretary gave alternative facts to that.

CONWAY: Wait a minute, ‘alternative facts’? Four of the five facts he uttered ... the one thing he got right was Zeke Miller. Four of the five facts he uttered were just not true. Alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.

Time magazine’s Zeke Miller wrote that the Martin Luther King bust had been removed from the Oval Office - but a cameraman was standing in front of it during the visit by reporters which blocked him from seeing the statue. He later apologised repeatedly for the error.

“This is on me, not my colleagues. I’ve been doing everything I can to fix my error. My apologies,” Miller tweeted at Spicer.

“Apology accepted,” the spokesman tweeted back.

The reaction to the advent of ‘alternative facts’ was largely one of disbelief.

Kellyanne Conway now refers to their lies as "alternative facts." We get it. War is peace, freedom is slavery, Trump is presidential.

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) January 22, 2017

First it was alt-right and now we have alt-facts. Can't wait for alt-liberty, alt-justice, and alt-freedom! #alternativefacts

— Scott Koch (@sekoch06) January 22, 2017

"Alternative facts"??? Is that the new name for those things we used to call, "lies"? https://t.co/AmJRVRyC7j

— Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) January 22, 2017

Naturally, people started to devise their own ‘alternative facts’.

The only time I ever believed in #alternativefacts pic.twitter.com/Ns1tWyP3X4

— Josh Kolodny (@coasterboyjosh) January 22, 2017

Alternative facts:
- Britain spends £350m a week on EU membership
- 70% of our laws are made in Brussels
- Turkey is about to join the EU https://t.co/WjoWcUTa9h

— Jack Blanchard (@Jack_Blanchard_) January 22, 2017

I'm using #alternativefacts on my bank loan application tomorrow. 💰 💰 💰

— Robert Graves (@RggnycRobert) January 22, 2017
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