story highlights trump has been consumed by negative comments about the size of the crowd at his inauguration aerial photos have indicated that obama 's first inauguration attracted a larger crowd washington ( cnn ) president donald trump , angered over a national park service retweet comparing his inaugural crowd size to barack obama 's in 2009 , called the acting director of the national park service on saturday to complain , two sources with knowledge of the call told cnn .
neither reynolds nor the park service would talk about it .
in a saturday phone call , trump personally ordered reynolds to produce additional photographs of the previous day ’s crowds on the mall , according to three individuals who have knowledge of the conversation .
for trump , who sees himself and his achievements in superlative terms , the inauguration ’s crowd size has been a source of grievance that he appears unable to put behind him .
( bill o’leary the washington post ) on the morning after donald trump ’s inauguration , acting national park service director michael t. reynolds received an extraordinary summons : the new president wanted to talk to him .
white house deputy press secretary sarah huckabee sanders said the call simply demonstrated that trump ’s management style is to be “ so accessible , and constantly in touch .
trump also expressed anger over a retweet sent from the agency ’s account , in which side - by - side photographs showed far fewer people at his swearing - in than had shown up to see barack obama ’s inauguration in 2009 .
trump called michael t. reynolds , acting director of the national park service , to express anger over the fact the national park service 's official twitter account retweeted a message that negatively compared the crowd sizes at the two inaugurations .
white house deputy press secretary sarah huckabee sanders also confirmed the call took place .