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The first White House briefing for Trump's press secretary descended into farce as he angrily claimed the president's inauguration had 'the largest audience ever' - despite photographic evidence to the contrary.

Sean Spicer claimed the media had lied about attendance at Friday's inauguration as he said around 770,000 people had showed up – just hours after Trump claims there were double that number in the crowd.

The new President was widely ridiculed after pictures emerged showing a comparatively thin audience at his swearing-in ceremony alongside a picture of Barack Obama's packed inauguration.

But Spicer claimed that aerial photographs of the event had been "intentionally framed in a way in one particular tweet to minimise the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall".

(Image: REUTERS)

His furious statement led to accusations on Twitter it was actually he that was lying, with some describing the briefing as 'Soviet'.

Spicer then launched into a bizarre defence arguing that the crowds seemed smaller because floor coverings had been used on the Mall that "highlighted" places where people were not standing.

In a sign of the growing rift between the White House and the media, CNN declined to stream the press briefing live.

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At a speech to CIA workers earlier Trump extraordinarily claimed that 1.5 million people turned up to his inauguration on Friday night.

It was a gross exaggeration compared to what his press secretary said at the briefing when he claimed that just 770,000 people had turned up.

(Image: Getty / Youtube)

There were only 250,000 tickets for the event but the President argued that more than one million additional spectators had arrived.

Trump's judgement was seemingly made without reference to official numbers but instead by simply looking at the crowd and estimating the size.

His attendance estimate wildly shot up from “a million” to “a million and a half” during his speech – in the same breath.

(Image: REUTERS) (Image: REUTERS)

He said: “We did a thing yesterday at the speech and everybody like the speech? But we had a massive field of people. You saw that. Packed.

“I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field. I'm like, wait a minute.

“I made a speech. I looked out, the field was, it looked like a million, million and a half people."

(Image: Getty)

In a combative tone, Spicer insisted that Trump's swearing in was "the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period."

But photos clearly show that the crowds did not stretch all the way to the Washington Monument, a contrast to Barack Obama's 2009 swearing in, when an estimated 1.8 million people attended.

Ratings also were lower for Trump's swearing in than they were in 2009.

Spicer challenged press accounts that compared the size of the crowd on the National Mall for Trump's inaugural to the numbers who showed up for Obama's swearing-in in 2009.

Spicer claimed some of the media was engaged in "deliberately false reporting" s to "lessen the enthusiasm" of Trump's inauguration.

The internet was quick to ridicule Spicer's aggressive tone, and that he left before taking any questions.