corps? >> that's the expectation. as you know, things can watch as we see sean spicer walk out. >> good evening. thank you for coming. i know our first official press briefing on monday and i wanted to give you an update on the president's activities. before the news of the day, i think i'd like to discuss a little bit of the coverage of the past 24 hours. yesterday, at a time when our nation and the world was watching the peaceful transition of power, and as the president said the transition and the balance of power of washington to the citizens of the united states, some members of the media engaged in deliberate false reporting. for the talk of the proper use of twitter, two instances yesterday stand out. one was a particularly example of which a reporter falsely tweeted out that the bust of martin luther king jr. had been removed from the oval office. after it was pointed out that this was just plain wrong, the reporter casually reported and

fweeted out and twi tried to claim the about must have been standing in front of it. this was irresponsible and reckless. secondly, photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way in one particular tweet to minimize the enormous support that it gather and the national mall. this was the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings used the protect the grass in the mall and highlighted any areas of people not standing while in years past the grass eliminated this visual. this was also the first time that fencing and mag me no, ma'am ters prevented the people from being able to access the mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past. inaccurate numbers of crowd size were also tweeted. no one had numbers because the national park service which controls the national mall does not put any out. by the way, this applies any attempts to try to count the number of protesters today in

the same fashion. we do know a few things so let's go through the facts. beknow that from the platform where the president was sworn in to 4th street holds about 250,000 people. from 4th street to the media tent is 220,000 and media tent to the washington monument out 50250,000 people. all of this space was full when the president took the oath of office. we know that 420,000 people used the d.c. metro public transit yesterday and compares to 317,000 that used it for president obama's last inaugural. this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration. period. both in person and around the globe. even "the new york times" printed a photograph showing that a misrepresentation of the crowd in the original tweet in the paper and showed the full extent of the support, depth and crowd and intensity that existed. these attempts to lessen the

enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong. the president was also at the center as you know at the central intelligence agency and creted by a crowd of some 400,000 cia employees, over 1,000 requests to attend prompting the president to note he'll have to come back to greet the rest. the employees were ecstatic he's the new commander in chief and he delivered them an empowerful and important message. he told them he has their back. and they were grateful for that. they gave him a five-minute standing ovation at the end and in a display of patriotism and they enthusiasm for his presidency. i'd also note that it's a shame that the cia didn't have a cia director to be with him today because the democrats have chosen -- senate democrats are stalling the nomination of mike pompeo and playing politics with national security. that's what you guys should be covering and writing instead of sowing division about tweets and

false narratives. the president is committed to unifying our country and that was the focus of his inaugural address. this kind of dishonesty in the media, the challenging to bring about our nation together is making it more difficult. there's talk in the media of holding donald trump accountable and i'm here to tell you it goes two ways. we are going to hold the press accountable, as well. the american people deserve better and as long as he serves as the messenger for the movement he'll take the message directly to the american people where his focus will always be. and with that, a few other updates from the day. the president had a constructive conversation with prime minister true doe of canada about strengsenning the relationship of the two nations and discussed sethling up additional meetings in the days to come which we'll follow up on. he also spoke to prime minister of mexico and a visit on trade, immigration and security. that will occur on the 31st.

the president has -- will welcome the first foreign leader this thursday when the united kingdom's may will come to washington on friday. on tomorrow the president will oversee his assistants to the presidents being sworn in. he'll then the staff will have an ethics briefing and be -- briefing on the proper use and handling of classified information. further updates as far as what he'll do -- oh, and then in the evening he will have a reception for law enforcement and first responders that helped support the inauguration. thank you guys for being here tonight. i'll see you on monday.