The right-wing tabloid wholesale cut several paragraphs from the story without any note or notification to the editor, and the reporter’s name was removed and replaced with a generic “DailyMail.com Staff Reporter” byline. The title was also completely changed to a more neutral context of Trump’s event. The Daily Mail did not respond to a request for comment. The article, as originally published, featured Daily Mail reporter Elizabeth Elkind’s personal coverage of Trump’s rally in Youngstown, where he beat GOP Senate hopeful JD Vance and several other candidates. In the article, published Saturday night and titled “Uncharacteristically thin crowd in Ohio an hour before Trump takes the stage for a rally in support of Senate candidate JD Vance — just after he said most GOP candidates WOULD be without the endorsement of,” Elkind noted that Trump had boasted hours before the event that it was “sold out” and expected a “massive crowd” — only the arena was visibly less than full. The Daily Beast found the original text by searching archived versions of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. “While the crowd didn’t fill the entire 7,000-seat Covelli Center, the Trump supporters who arrived in Youngstown on Saturday were wildly excited,” Elkind originally wrote. “The former president bragged about the ‘massive crowd,’ but the stage was uncharacteristically thin by the time Trump took the stage,” he added. Elkind, who traveled to Youngstown for the Mail to cover the rally, pointed out that the less-than-capacity crowd may have been the result of a “big college football game between Ohio State University and the University of Toledo” that took place at the same time. The reporter included several photos she took showing large amounts of empty seats throughout the venue, including one taken less than an hour before Trump took the stage, revealing the arena was two-thirds full. Trump, who is notoriously touchy about crowd sizes and his TV ratings, eventually took to social media platform Truth Social to blast the Daily Mail and Elkind for their coverage of the rally. “Check out the photos (on TRUTH SOCIAL) of the packed arena crowd in Youngstown, Ohio, not to mention the thousands of people outside the arena who couldn’t get in. Other journalists (and I) saw them all, loud and clear,” the twice-impeached former president shouted shortly after midnight early Monday. “The place was ELECTRIC (more so than electric cars, which don’t have the same ‘endurance’ as these incredible people)! Despite the obvious FACTS (TRUTH!), the obnoxious Daily Mail reporter said the crowd was “uncharacteristically sparse”, WRONG!!! How do you combat this Fake News?” By Monday morning, the Daily Mail had completely changed the article and finally removed Elkind’s name. The article is now headlined: “Donald Trump says most Republicans ‘would lose’ races without his support as he visits Ohio rally to support US Senate candidate JD Vance.” All references to the size of the crowd being anything less than “massive”—including some photos of Elkind—were redacted from the piece. “The former president posted on Truth Social that he had delivered ‘massive crowds’ for JD Vance and Dr Oz in Ohio and Pennsylvania after being asked,” the article now reads at the beginning. Later Monday, Trump continued to dispute the Mail’s report that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, whom the former president recently (and reluctantly) endorsed, was “significantly absent” from the rally. Elkind noted that DeWine spoke about his absence at a controversial sporting event involving his granddaughters. However, this section of the article has remained unchanged since publication. “Ohio Governor Mike DeWine met me at the airport as I arrived for the big and very successful Youngstown Rally,” Trump quipped on his social media site Monday night. “He had to fly to do it. I suggested that he should go home and spend some time with his family, he has a very busy political life. The Daily Mail, the Unfunded New York Times and some others said I was fired by the Governor, there was no time in his schedule for us to meet (see picture!). They knew that wasn’t true, but they wrote the story anyway. More Fake News – When will it end???”
