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Michelle Obama: ‘I could tell’ if Trump or Obama had larger inauguration crowd

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Former first lady Michelle Obama said she could tell that President Trump’s inauguration crowd size was smaller than her husband’s previous crowds.

A clip from the “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” released Thursday showed DeGeneres asking Obama about the three previous presidential inaugurations she had attended.

{mosads}“Two of ours and one of someone else,” Obama said with a smile as the crowd laughed.

DeGeneres said Obama had “pretty good seats” at those inaugurations and asked if the former first lady could judge who had bigger crowd sizes.

“I could tell,” she responded with laugh, without elaborating.

 

The debate over the crowd size at Trump’s Jan. 20, 2017 inauguration set off an early feud between the media and then-press secretary Sean Spicer.

Spicer inaccurately claimed a day after the inauguration that Trump had “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.”

He later admitted that he “screwed that up” when discussing the size of the crowd. 

Obama, who has mostly refrained from openly criticizing Trump since leaving the White House, opened up in her new memoir about how she felt on the day of Trump’s inauguration.

She said she “stopped even trying to smile” during his swearing-in ceremony.

“Someone from Barack’s administration might have said that the optics there were bad, that what the public saw didn’t reflect the president’s reality or ideals, ” she wrote. “But in this case, maybe it did.”

“Realizing it, I made my own optic adjustment,” she continued. “I stopped even trying to smile.”

Her new book, “Becoming,” was released on Tuesday.

Tags Donald Trump Donald Trump Michelle Obama Michelle Obama Sean Spicer The Ellen DeGeneres Show Trump inauguration

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