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The Park Service wouldn't have counted the crowd even if the inauguration was outside

President Donald Trump arrives on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2017.
Scott Olson
/
Getty Images
President Donald Trump arrives on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2017.

Even if Trump's inauguration had been held outside as usual, the National Park Service wouldn't have come up with a headcount.

For decades, that agency released official crowd counts for events on the National Mall, including inaugurations, protests, parades and even concerts. But back in the 1990s, Congress quietly forced the National Park Service to stop.

That decision was aimed at keeping the agency out of raging debates over the size of crowds — debates like the political firestorm that broke out over the size of the audience for Trump's first inaugural.

Read up on the fascinating history — and see photos.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Tamara Keith
Tamara Keith has been a White House correspondent for NPR since 2014 and co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast, the top political news podcast in America. In that time, she has chronicled the final years of the Obama administration, covered Hillary Clinton's failed bid for president from start to finish and thrown herself into documenting the Trump administration, from policy made by tweet to the president's COVID diagnosis and the insurrection. In the final year of the Trump administration and the first year of the Biden administration, she focused her reporting on the White House response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rachel Treisman
Rachel Treisman (she/her) is a writer and editor for the Morning Edition live blog, which she helped launch in early 2021.