In an echo of a moment that set the tone for the Trump presidency nearly four years ago, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Saturday vastly overstated the size of a crowd that had formed to support the embattled president.
By a not insignificant 980,000 people.
In a tweet, McEnany gushed that the “Million MAGA March” in Washington to protest Trump’s election loss had more than a million marchers, a wildly off the mark claim that wasn’t even supported with the pictures that accompanied her post.
It wasn’t even physically possible – The National Park Service issued a permit to march organisers for 10,000 people in Freedom Plaza, where participants gathered, DCist reported.
The plaza’s maximum capacity is 13,900.
Trump’s own estimate of the crowd size was initially “hundreds of thousands” and he later revised this to “tens of thousands.”
The claim is reminiscent of previous White House press secretary who – on the first full day in the job – stood in front of the world’s media and brazenly lied about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration in January 2017.
Several other US cities saw gatherings of Trump supporters unwilling to accept Democrat Joe Biden’s Electoral College and popular vote victory, PA Media reports.
Cries of “stop the steal” and “count every vote” continued in spite of a lack of evidence of voter fraud or other problems that could reverse the result.
After night fell, the relatively peaceful demonstrations in Washington turned from tense to violent – egged on by the president himself who urged police to “do your job and don’t hold back” against “ANTIFA SCUM”.
Videos posted on social media showed fistfights, projectiles and clubs as Trump supporters clashed with those demanding they take their banners and leave.
The tensions extended into Sunday morning. A variety of charges, including assault and weapons possession, were filed against those arrested, officials said.
Two police officers were injured and several firearms were recovered.
Trump himself had given an approving nod to the gathering on Saturday morning by dispatching his motorcade through streets lined with supporters before rolling on to his Virginia golf club.
People chanted “USA, USA” and “four more years”, and many carried American flags and signs to show their displeasure with the vote tally and insistence that, as Trump has baselessly asserted, fraud was the reason.
“I just want to keep up his spirits and let him know we support him,” said one loyalist, Anthony Whittaker of Winchester, Virginia.
He was outside the Supreme Court, where a few thousand assembled after a march along Pennsylvania Avenue from Freedom Plaza, near the White House.