For the second time in three days, the White House is blaming the press for the empty seats at a Trump rally.
The White House’s Rapid Response 47 account hit back at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins after she aired footage of bare upper sections at President Donald Trump’s Monday night rally in Youngstown, Ohio.
“The only one humiliated here is @kaitlancollins. These ‘vacant seats’ had an obstructed view due to the gigantic press risers directly in front of them. Just more Fake News bulls—,” the account posted on X.
The account made nearly the same claim days earlier. After New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh posted video of whole empty sections at Trump’s rally in Clarksville, Tennessee on Saturday, Rapid Response said those seats were “purposely left empty” because anyone sitting in them would have had their view blocked by “gigantic press risers,” the Irish Star reported.
The Youngstown explanation doesn’t account for local reporting. Station WFMJ found that tarps covered roughly a quarter of the Covelli Centre’s seating, and that the crowd never filled more than about two-thirds of the seats left open. The Tribune Chronicle estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people attended, compared with roughly 7,000 at Trump’s 2017 rally in the same arena. The paper also reported that about half the permanent seats were closed off before the event began.
Collins had allowed on “The Source” that it was hard to know how much to read into the turnout. She noted that Trump is the one who has been claiming his events need big overflow rooms.
The press riser defense is the latest in a string of explanations. Last week, Trump insisted that supporters seated up high routinely “migrate down to the Main Floor” and declared that he never has empty seats.
Collins has been a frequent target. Trump mocked her looks at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in July and told her to “smile.”
The fight over the crowd comes as Republicans scramble to hold Ohio. A CNN poll released last week showed Democrat Sherrod Brown leading Republican Sen. Jon Husted 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters.
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