President Donald Trump responded today to the huge crowds of protesters in marches held yesterday, asking in tweets why participants didn't vote and then saying he recognized the rights of people to protest peacefully.   

"Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly."

An hour and a half later,Trump using a more muted tone:

"Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don't always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views."

Protesters flooded the streets yesterday in a show of opposition to Trump's comments on Mexican immigrants, Muslims and climate change.

While many Americans demonstrated, the White House turned its focus to Trump's inauguration and accused the media of downplaying the crowd size.

But according to a Nielsen ratings report, nearly 31 million people watched the live TV coverage of Trump's inauguration, which was less than the nearly 38 million viewers for Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009.

Trump, however, pointed out in a tweet that his numbers were larger than Obama's second inauguration, but did not make reference to the first one.

"Wow, television ratings just out: 31 million people watched the Inauguration, 11 million more than the very good ratings from four years ago!"

Obama drew over 20 million viewers in 2013.

Trump's viewership was bigger than Bill Clinton's first and second swearing-ins and larger than George W. Bush's, which was the least watched at around 15 million in 2005.