Day 3: White House Press Secretary Goes on Delusional Tirade Against Media
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer — the man who speaks directly on behalf of the President of the United States — summoned the media to the White House on Saturday. While the first press conference was set for Monday, Spicer asked the media to appear for what turned out to be a five-minute dressing down (ironically, while Spicer was wearing an ill-fitting suit).
What an introduction to the White House press corps in Spicer’s first official appearance as press secretary, huh?
First, he excoriates media coverage for being “deliberately engaged in false reporting.” His ire was initially directed at a single reporter who incorrectly tweeted about a Martin Luther King, Jr. bust being removed from the Oval Office. (The reporter had already apologized and withdrawn the tweet 24 hours prior to Spicer’s remarks, which Spicer had to have known.)
A more vitriolic rant (with photo props!) followed those remarks. This was aimed at the press as a whole for publishing photos comparing the attendance at Donald Trump’s inauguration and Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration.
It seems pretty clear to anyone not visually-impaired that Obama’s inauguration was substantially larger.
Not to Team Trump.
Spicer ridiculously blamed everything from the angle of the photos (?) to floor coverings protecting the grass (??) to fencing and magnetometers slowing access (???).
Spicer claimed that no one had definite numbers, then — apparently not seeing the irony — immediately rattled off estimates regarding the number of people in attendance at certain locations.
Finally, he claimed the metro ridership in D.C. had been larger for Trump than Obama in 2013.
Nope. Not even close.
Of course, all of the lies and propaganda and hoopla out of Spicer’s mouth was at the direction of Trump, as George W. Bush’s press secretary, Ari Fleischer, pointed out.
The fact that Spicer specifically noted that additional comparisons made between the size of Women’s March protests nationwide and that of Trump’s inauguration were unfair further points to the lack of attendance as really, really bothering Trump. (And yes, multiple individual cities’ Women’s Marches approached or possibly exceeded that of Trump’s inauguration.)
Later, Spicer referenced Trump being greeted by a “raucous” crowd at the CIA.
Not exactly.
Trump stuffed the room with staffers and support team members, and gave a speech largely praising himself and his campaign while standing in front of the Memorial Wall honoring employees who fell in the line of duty.
How tone deaf can the newly-installed president and staff really be?
The top aide to former CIA Director John Brennan swiftly spoke out behalf of his former boss.
Toward the end of his remarks, Spicer implored the press on what they “should be covering.” The First Amendment means the government doesn’t get to dictate to the press what they should or should not cover, though.
Spicer would be best to quickly heed the advice of his predecessor, Obama’s final press secretary, Josh Earnest, who stated just before leaving office that he quickly learned that debating the press was a losing battle:
“The press corps decides who wins and who loses the debate. There will never be a day that any White House press secretary finishes the briefing and the White House press corps begins their stories by saying, ‘Today White House press secretary so-and-so really proved us wrong.’”
Lashing out at the media, lies, propaganda and shameless self-promoting: we’ve seen this act before.
It’s a lot less likely to work when Americans are staring at photos and you yell that they don’t know what they’re seeing.
Or you make up facts that non-partisan agencies easily rebuff.
Or you honor yourself in front of the memory of fallen heroes.
3 days in, 1459 to go
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