Donald Trump has spent the past month or so insisting that there were no empty seats at his recent midterm convention in Dallas. As recently as last week, long after most political observers had completely lost interest in the meaningless Republican gathering, the president continued to claim the event had extraordinary attendance — despite the fact that those who were actually in the arena saw, and in many instances documented, all kinds of empty seats.

The rhetoric was pitiful, but there’s little this guy cares more about than crowd size.

Now, as Trump has held campaign rallies in red states in recent days, turnout for the unpopular president can be charitably described as underwhelming. In fact, The New York Times reported after an event in Alabama, “These days, Mr. Trump is in political trouble, even with members of his famously loyal base. The indoor arena that he spoke at on Friday was a fraction of the size of the football stadium he once spoke in — security concerns are such that he rarely speaks in outdoor venues anymore — and still the place was not full. Some upper sections were almost completely empty.”

It wasn’t just Alabama. Plenty of empty seats were visible at Republican gatherings in Ohio and Oklahoma, as plenty of reporters in attendance for the event were able to document.

Trump didn’t take it well. He published this rant to his social media platform Monday afternoon:

The Ohio Arena was already full to the brim — And yet these people were still trying to get in. The New York Times said, “There were empty seats” when, in fact, there were none, and thousands of people had to be turned away. The New York Times, and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested for their dishonesty and disservice to our Country. When Bernie Sanders has 500 to 1,000 people, they make it sound like it’s the biggest event that ever took place. When PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP has 50,000 people, they make it sound like nobody showed up!

A minute later, he published another 222-word tirade claiming that some seats were empty — but only because so many of his admirers had abandoned their seats to get closer to him.

“I never have empty seats — Never have, and never will!” the president added.

It’s tempting to brush off these harangues as pathetic, but let’s not move too quickly past his phrasing in that first harangue: “The New York Times, and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested for their dishonesty and disservice to our Country.”

And that’s what matters. If Trump’s approach to self-soothing involves lying about crowd sizes, so be it. But when a sitting American president starts publicly endorsing journalists’ arrest because they’ve published reports the White House disapproves of, all in the middle of a larger war on the free press and routine references to “treason,” that’s tougher to shrug off.

Perhaps Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel can shed light on this from a federal law enforcement perspective. The president is suggesting journalists “should be arrested for their dishonesty and disservice to our Country.” Do they agree? Have they received any directives from the West Wing to launch criminal investigations targeting reporters for running reports Trump doesn’t like?

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