CNN airs this comparison graphic after Trump @PressSec claimed “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.” pic.twitter.com/m7nJKof4CT — Jon Passantino (@passantino) January 21, 2017

The spokesman took the podium as millions of people in Washington and cities around the country marched in protest of Trump's inauguration.

Coverage of the demonstrations blanketed cable news coverage on Saturday, Trump's first full day in office.

The forceful statement echoed the words of Trump himself, who boasted about the size of the crowd that witnessed him take the oath of office.

Speaking just hours earlier to staff at the Central Intelligence Agency, Trump said massive groups of people “went all the way back to the Washington Monument," despite photos showing otherwise.

This is a shot of the Mall from the Washington Monument yesterday at 11:59am ET. (See timecode) pic.twitter.com/iUwOCYDM8p — Ben O'Connell (@benjamin_oc) January 21, 2017

"I get up this morning and I turn on one of the networks and they show an empty field. I said wait a minute, I made a speech, I looked out, the field was, it looked like a million, a million and a half people,” the president said.

Spicer repeated Trump’s claim, saying “all of this space was full when the president took the oath of office.”

The spokesman also rehashed Trump’s attack on a Time magazine reporter who mistakenly wrote in a pool report that a bust of Martin Luther King. Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office.

The reporter quickly corrected and apologized for the mistake, an apology Spicer had accepted just a day earlier.

He also ripped the tone of the coverage of Trump’s visit to the CIA, directing reporters to give more attention to a delay in the confirmation of Trump's pick to lead the agency, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.)

"That's what you guys should be writing and covering," Spicer said.

The tongue lashing was puzzling to reporters at the White House. Previous administrations have focused their public statements on policy changes they hoped to enact in their earliest days. But Trump and Spicer’s comments are a sign they plan to continue the same battle with the media they waged during the 2016 campaign.

"I'm here to tell you that it goes two ways,” Spicer told members of the media. “We're going to hold the press accountable as well.”

Update: 6:33 p.m.