Over the weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersNYT editorial board remembers Ginsburg: She 'will forever have two legacies' Two GOP governors urge Republicans to hold off on Supreme Court nominee Sanders knocks McConnell: He's going against Ginsburg's 'dying wishes' MORE (I-Vt.) drew a crowd of some 11,000 people to a rally in Phoenix. By comparison, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Trump dismisses climate change role in fires, says Newsom needs to manage forest better Jimmy Kimmel hits Trump for rallies while hosting Emmy Awards MORE recently drew a crowd of only 4,200 to his rally recent rally in Phoenix, according to the Phoenix Business Journal. But Trump persists in falsely claiming he drew as many as 15,000 people which, even by standards of political exaggeration, would make Pinocchio proud.

Trump recently slandered Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainMomentum growing among Republicans for Supreme Court vote before Election Day McConnell urges GOP senators to 'keep your powder dry' on Supreme Court vacancy McSally says current Senate should vote on Trump nominee MORE (R-Ariz.) and Sanders and falsely stated they have been harmful to veteras when the exact opposite is true. McCain is a hero to vets for everything he has done for them, and when Sanders was chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee, he received rave reviews from leading vets groups for his efforts to improve and reform programs veterans. Trump owes an apology to Sanders for failing to acknowledge his leadership on veterans issues and owes an apology to the nation for failing to be honest about the size of his crowds and owes an apology to POWs for saying that he prefers troops who didn't get captured.

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On the matter of apologies, Sanders is owed an apology from Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS for not mentioning the gigantic crowds that Sanders is drawing, from Texas to Arizona to Wisconsin, and instead overhyping Trump to a degree that is embarrassing to the quality of political reporting on television.

The media are understating the degree of the Sanders surge, the importance of the size of his crowds in states across the nation, the clout of the social media component of the Sanders campaign, the size of the growing legion of small donors that Sanders is attracting and the fact that this small donor army that Sanders is building is growing every day with every large crowd at every new event.

There is an enthusiasm and excitement driving the grassroots movement that Sanders has created. Trump should fess up that his crowd in Phoenix was barely more than one-third the size of the recent Sanders crowd. The media should give Sanders far more credit than he is receiving and far less time in its strange obsessiveness with every word of every comment every time Trump indulges in his penchant for answering his political call of nation.

Whatever Trump says, and whatever the media report, it is Sanders and not Trump who is lighting the political fires that matter in presidential politics and those who still have not figured this out are in for a big surprise.

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. Contact him at brentbbi@webtv.net.