What was supposed to be a grand patriotic celebration of America’s 250th birthday has become a spectacle of empty crowds, awkward moments and now one deeply strange exchange that left even veteran political commentator Jen Psaki struggling to find the words.

“I don’t know what I watched there,” Psaki said Thursday night.

Viewers watching at home appeared to feel the same way.

During The Briefing on MS NOW, Psaki delivered a scathing rundown of President Donald Trump’s troubled Great American State Fair on the National Mall. The event was intended to showcase American history, state culture and national pride in the run-up to the country’s semiquincentennial celebration.

Instead, it has faced reports of sparse attendance, chaotic planning, extreme heat and increasingly bizarre entertainment.

Psaki began with a striking image from earlier in the week: a musical act performing before a crowd so thin that, according to her, there were more people on the stage than watching from below.

“This was the scene on Tuesday,” she said, showing footage from the fair. “There were actually more in the band on stage than there were in the crowd watching them.”

That alone would have been embarrassing for an event promoted as a major national attraction.

But then came the clip that made the broadcast go viral.

Psaki played video of Daily Wire commentator Michael Knowles speaking during what appeared to be a discussion with a young audience member. Knowles, who formerly co-hosted a podcast with Sen. Ted Cruz, was discussing the Salem Witch Trials — one of the darkest chapters in early American history.

His comments quickly became the focus of outrage and ridicule.

“The one area where the Salem Witch Trials went a little far is, I would say, they weren’t organized enough,” Knowles said in the clip.

He then incorrectly referred to “random judges kind of burning these ladies,” even though the people executed during the Salem Witch Trials were hanged, not burned.

Knowles continued by suggesting that a more formalized process — mentioning a “Grand Inquisitor” — might have been preferable.

The moment was jarring.

It was especially uncomfortable because the person Knowles appeared to be speaking with was a child.

“This is one of my favorites because it’s so strange,” Psaki said before playing the clip. “The guy who used to co-host Ted Cruz’s podcast seemed to defend the Salem Witch Trials in an apparent debate with someone who I’m guessing is about 10 years old.”

When the video ended, Psaki could barely hide her disbelief.

“If you don’t know what you watched there, I don’t know what I watched there either,” she said. “But I do know that the person he is talking to is definitely a child.”

The strange exchange came at a particularly bad time for the fair’s organizers.

Trump’s Great American State Fair was meant to create momentum and excitement around the nation’s 250th anniversary. Instead, critics say it has become a symbol of poor planning and political overreach.

The event has struggled with light daytime crowds, a lack of basic visitor information and technical issues. In one moment highlighted by Psaki, part of a stage reportedly began to collapse during a performance, narrowly missing dancers.

“Things haven’t improved since then,” she said, introducing the footage.

The fair’s problems have now become impossible to separate from the online mockery surrounding it.

For critics, the Salem Witch Trials clip captured everything they believe has gone wrong: an event meant to celebrate American history producing a bizarre historical discussion, in front of a tiny crowd, at a fair already being mocked as a costly public failure.

Psaki noted that the unusual gathering may have been among the better-attended moments she had seen.

“As bizarre as that was to watch, it may have also had the biggest crowd of any event I’ve seen at this particular fair,” she said.

That line hit especially hard because Trump has long treated crowd size as a measure of success.

His political events are frequently built around spectacle — flags, music, dramatic staging and images of enthusiastic supporters. But the National Mall fair has repeatedly produced the opposite visual: wide open spaces, sparse foot traffic and cameras capturing the empty backdrop.

Even Fox News, one of Trump’s friendliest television outlets, has aired live shots from the fairgrounds that critics say revealed the lack of attendance.

The administration and Freedom 250 organizers have defended the celebration, arguing that it is part of a broader effort to honor the country’s upcoming milestone.

But Thursday night’s segment showed how quickly a carefully staged event can lose control of its own story.

The fair was supposed to be about national pride.

Instead, one strange clip about the Salem Witch Trials may have become its most unforgettable moment.