Joshua Roberts/Reuters
President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed The New York Times for allegedly distorting the record on the New England Patriots’ attendance numbers at the team’s White House visit on Wednesday versus those in past years. “Failing @nytimes, which has been calling me wrong for two years, just got caught in a big lie concerning New England Patriots visit to W.H.,” Trump tweeted. He was referring to a side-by-side comparison on Twitter showing the turnout for the team’s visit to the White House under Trump versus its last visit under President Obama in 2015. The latter photo showed visibly more people in the photo, but the Patriots fired back in a tweet, saying the 2015 photo showed football staffers standing with the players, while on Wednesday they were sitting with the crowd on the South Lawn of the White House. More players attended the Obama visit in 2015 (50) than the Trump visit this year (34), but the total Patriots delegation was around the same. Many players decided not to attend the White House visit this year, with some citing politics as their reason.