Did Robert Kraft hijack the Patriots’ Twitter account?

On a day reserved for celebration, the Patriots’ official account picked an odd fight with the New York Times over this year’s turnout at the post-Super Bowl White House ceremony.

The Patriots, who have several high-profile connections to President Donald Trump, responded pointedly Wednesday night to a tweet the Times circulated earlier in the afternoon, which features a split-image of Patriots players celebrating their 2015 Super Bowl victory with Barack Obama and those celebrating this year’s championship with Trump. The 2015 shot shows far more people standing behind Obama on the White House stage and flanking staircases.

Whoever was managing New England’s Twitter account hours after the event apparently took offense to the Times’ suggestive comparison.

The Times’ article on the Patriots’ visit, which the newspaper linked to in its tweet, quotes a Patriots spokesman who claims the number of team members present for each trip was “roughly the same.” As clarified by the spokesman — and reiterated in the Patriots’ tweet — some photos of the annual ceremonies don’t feature the team’s support staff on the stairs, including this year’s.

Likely blindsided by the Patriots’ reply, the Times tweeted a more comprehensive message on the crowd size. Though this year’s extended team turnout may have been on par with that of 2015, 34 players made the trip to Trump’s White House versus 50 to Obama’s two years ago. A handful of Patriots emerged in the months leading up to the ceremony, saying their politics — particularly their disdain for Trump’s — would keep them away.

The Patriots publicly disputing a Times tweet on White House turnout size represents an odd callback to an argument the president himself has sought to make in the past. White House spokesman Sean Spicer defended the crowd size for Trump’s inauguration in January by calling it the “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period” — a hyperbolic statement Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway famously tried to excuse as “alternative facts.”

And, the Patriots weren’t done. With a split-image of its own, the team’s account tried to make the difference in crowd sizes seem negligible.

Of course, Trump had to get in on the fun Wednesday night. He unabashedly thanked coach Bill Belichick during his speech, one of his supposed Patriots friends along with Tom Brady and Kraft, for the complimentary letter that, he says, helped him win over voters in New Hampshire.