In the battle between President Donald Trump and Mother Nature, once again on Saturday night in Washington DC, the old lady triumphed.
The president’s plans to commemorate America’s 250th birthday with a speech that he had already warned the country’s television networks would be “very long” even by his own circuitous rhetorical standards were upended by heat advisories and a severe thunderstorm that forced the mandatory evacuation of the National Mall.
By 11:19pm, when he finally started speaking, the crowds attending the event had dramatically thinned out. Trump suggested that the audience had more than halved from 350,000 people he claimed were present at the start of the evening, down to 150,000 who he said had sought shelter in the Smithsonian museums that line the Mall and then traipsed back to watch the speech.
As ever when it comes to Trump and crowd size, neither of those numbers appears moderately close to reality.
Visitors listen from the bleachers as Trump speaks during Salute to America 250 celebrations on the National Mall (Photo: Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
