Trump Is Getting Defensive About The Size Of Something He Cares Deeply About, And He Seems Obsessed

If his cartoonishly large ballroom is any indication, size matters to President Donald Trump. So much so that it seems a New York Times article about dwindling attendance at a few of Trump’s recent rallies prompted the president to express his discontent bigly on Truth Social.

He even suggested the newspaper “should be arrested” for its reporting.

“If President Trump’s earlier political rallies felt like standing-room-only rock concerts, the latest ones are starting to feel like the first stops of a farewell tour,” the Times’ Katie Rogers, who has gone to Trump rallies “on and off, for almost a decade,” sassily began her article.

Rogers goes on to admit that Trump “can still draw crowds” and that “people still wait all day to see him,” but said his rallies last week, including in Alabama and Ohio, appeared “more modest — and at times more sedate — than they used to be.”

Rogers wrote that “there were swaths of empty seats” at Trump’s Alabama rally on Friday. At his Ohio rally on Saturday — in which gubernatorial hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy had a very embarrassing moment — she noted that “several areas of an upper deck were empty by the time Mr. Trump finished speaking.”

So, naturally, on Monday, Trump did his thing on his social media platform — by which we mean he had a complete meltdown.

“In actuality, thousands of people were unable to get in,” Trump wrote of his Ohio rally. “The Arena was totally MAXED OUT, including all upper sections. What does happen at all of my SOLD OUT Rallies, is that the people in the upper sections tend to migrate down to the Main Floor — The ‘migration’ process always happens!” He added: “The Rallies are ‘HOTTER’ than ever.”

In another post on Monday, Trump made the wild statement that “The New York Times, and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested” for their reporting on the size of crowds at his rallies and “for their dishonesty and disservice to our Country.”

On Tuesday, Trump was still apparently fuming over the Times’ report, because he began his day by ranting about it again. “My Rally crowds and enthusiasm are unbelievable! Nobody has ever seen anything like it,” Trump wrote at 8:36 a.m. “We are flipping races all over the place. The Fake News knows it, but they don’t want to be truthful with their viewers.”

He added: “The [Democrats] never counted on this. Thanks you to the great Networks that are covering the Rallies in full. They are being rewarded with BIG RATINGS. Watch for the ‘Midterm Surprise!’”

Though it’s unclear whether Trump’s “surprise” will materialize, it was unsurprising that he kept whining about crowd size. In his next post an hour later, Trump decided to blast a different outlet in his blind rage: Fox News.

“They don’t show my record breaking Rallies the morning after,” Trump wrote about Fox News at 9:50 a.m. Tuesday. “But others do, and that’s what MAGA is watching. Fox is promoting the [Democrats], not the Republicans and MAGA. They have totally lost their way!”

Trump’s (presumably) final post on the matter, published a minute later, was short and sweet.

“MY RALLIES ARE SAVING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, AGAIN!!!” he wrote.

The Times isn’t the only outlet reporting that fewer people are attending the president’s rallies. An analysis by the Daily Beast’s investigative Substack PunchUp also found that Trump is “attracting far fewer fans than those that powered his rise to the White House a decade ago,” citing sources including local outlets and the Washington Post.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.