TRUMP Calls for WaPo’s Dave Weigel to BE FIRED After Bogus Report of Empty FL Rally

President Donald Trump slammed Washington Post politics reporter (and former Journolist) Dave Weigel for posting a photo mocking Trump for the size of the crowd at his rally Friday night in Pensacola, Florida that was actually taken well before Trump entered the venue. Weigel mockingly quoting Trump’s tweet about the rally, “Packed to the rafters”.

As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier Saturday, liberals online, including the site Raw Story, were spreading a photo of the rally taken well before Trump took the stage at the Pensacola Bay Center that showed many empty sections of seats. It was falsely claimed that Trump could be seen entering the rally in the photo. Several reporters took to Twitter to debunk the false claims, posting photos and videos from the rally while Trump was actually on stage.

https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/939494292363661312

Weigel deleted his bogus attack, but not before it had been screen-grabbed. Trump included the image in his tweet ripping Weigel that said, “.@DaveWeigel @WashingtonPost put out a phony photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived @ the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in. Real photos now shown as I spoke. Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo!”

Weigel replied to Trump–but was still surly–accusing Trump of lying about the photo. “Sure thing: I apologize. I deleted the photo after @dmartosko told me I’d gotten it wrong. Was confused by the image of you walking in the bottom right corner.”

The man in the photo posted by Weigel is walking almost alone and is wearing a black tie. Trump wore a bright red tie for the rally and entered the rally from the other side of the arena on the long elevated walkway seen in the photo.

Weigel posted the photo without the green arrow that others posted. But his false accusation that Trump is lying is based on the man the arrow is pointing to, so this version is being used to highlight his false accusation.

Weigel later laughed off a critic, “It was a bad tweet on my personal account, not a story for Washington Post. I deleted it after like 20 minutes. Very fair to call me out. Everything I say on Twitter is a joke, except what I say about @swin24.”

Trump followed up, calling on Weigel to be fired, “.@daveweigel of the Washington Post just admitted that his picture was a FAKE (fraud?) showing an almost empty arena last night for my speech in Pensacola when, in fact, he knew the arena was packed (as shown also on T.V.). FAKE NEWS, he should be fired.”

Photos and videos posted by reporters showing the real crowd size:

Yashar Ali with the New Yorker and Huffington Post posted a series of photos refuting the liberal lies, “People are sharing the 1st image below and saying it shows the crowd size of Trump’s rally last night (also saying you can see Trump enter in the lower right hand corner of the photo). That’s inaccurate. 3 images from Getty/WAPO show the reality of crowd and where he entered from”

Right after the rally, Daily Mail reporter David Martosko posted a 360 degree video he took from the press pit at the rally showing a nearly full house.

https://twitter.com/dmartosko/status/939332294124425216

Fox News reporter Peter Doocy also posted 360 video from the rally.

This is why President Trump is always imploring the media to ‘turn the cameras around’ and show the crowd.

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Kristinn Taylor has contributed to The Gateway Pundit for over ten years. Mr. Taylor previously wrote for Breitbart, worked for Judicial Watch and was co-leader of the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com. He studied journalism in high school, visited the Newseum and once met David Brinkley.

You can email Kristinn Taylor here, and read more of Kristinn Taylor's articles here.

 

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