US President Donald Trump has presided over a swearing-in ceremony at the White House for senior members of his incoming government team.
But the ceremony was overshadowed by a furious ongoing argument between the White House and the news reporters who cover the President.
The new White House Chief of Staff is vowing a "tooth and nail" battle between Donald Trump and the media, and another top Trump adviser has described falsehoods articulated by the President as "alternative facts".
Our Washington Correspondent Simon Marks reports.
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At the White House on Sunday afternoon President Trump made a serene attempt to suggest that all is well behind its walls.
At a swearing-in ceremony for 30 of his top aides, he spoke glowingly of them, and promised long nights of work ahead as the Trump administration begins grappling with the levers of government.
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But the rest of the weekend was brutal….with America's new President waging a scorched earth policy against news organizations and the reporters who cover him.
It started on Saturday during a visit to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia….where, in front of a wall honoring slain CIA employees…..he chose to talk about the size of the crowd at his Friday inauguration…and insisted the media had under-reported it.
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His Press Secretary Sean Spicer went further….lecturing members of the press from the White House podium like an angry headmaster.
And then lying about the size of the crowd that came to Washington to watch the President's swearing-in.
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That is pure fantasy.
Pictures from Friday's event show large swathes of the National Mall empty….other images show the President and Vice President waving to non-existent crowds as they paraded past largely empty reviewing stands.
But in this White House….it is apparent that top Trump aides are ready to play fast-and-loose with facts.
The President's top adviser Kellyanne Conway had this furious televised exchange with the host of NBC's Meet the Press, Chuck Todd.
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The idea that "alternative facts" even exist flies the face of decades of media coverage of The White House.
But these are going to be different times, with White House of Staff Reince Priebus telling Fox News that the President plans to battle the media "tooth and nail".
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The next few days will be busy at The White House….more staff arriving to take up their positions….calls to foreign leaders that have already included a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Teresa May will be here for talks with Republican leaders on Thursday and face-to-face meetings at the White House on Friday…..top of the Prime Minister's her agenda, planning for a US-UK trade deal once Britain leaves the EU.
Then the Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto will be in Washington for a conversation that will no doubt touch on President Trump's proposed mass deportations of people living illegally in the US….and the wall he wants to build along Mexico's southern border.
But routine press coverage of all those meetings is now threatened by the rapidly fraying relationship between journalists who report "facts", and a White House that believes there's more than one version of them.
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