White House builds bridges Spokesman takes responsibility, vows to tell truth
WHITE House press secretary Sean Spicer has said that while the Donald Trump administration may sometimes “disagree with the facts”, the new President and his team have “no intention to lie”.
Mr Spicer’s comments came in his first full media conference since he drew worldwide attention on the weekend after launching a furious attack on the media over coverage of the Trump inauguration.
Twitter was hit with #SpicerFacts jokes before White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway fanned the flames of the feud by asserting he had presented “alternative facts”.
Mr Spicer tried to defuse tension yesterday by opening with a self-deprecating joke about his lack of popularity. His 78-minute session was wide-ranging and mostly substantive.
He corrected one disputed statement from his Sunday press conference, defended another and expressed frustration about news coverage of the administration.
Asked for a pledge not to lie, Spicer assented, saying, “We have to be honest with the American people. I think sometimes we can disagree with the facts ... but our intention is never to lie to you.”
He said he had received incorrect information about
usage on the Washington Metro system on Inauguration Day when he claimed it was used more than for Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration.
“There are times when you tweet something out or write a story and you publish a correction,” he said yesterday.
“That doesn’t mean you were trying to deceive readers or the American people, does it? I think we should be afforded the same opportunity.”
Mr Spicer didn’t back down from his claim that Mr Trump’s inauguration was
the most seen ever – he was including people watching online.
The ceremony didn’t have the highest TV ratings – and aerial photographs indicate the live crowd wasn’t as big as it was for Obama’s first swearing-in – but there are no reliable crowd estimates or numbers indicating how many people across the world watched online.
Mr Spicer expressed frustration about an erroneous report, later corrected, stating that a bust of Martin Luther King Jnr had been removed from a room in the White House after the
President’s inauguration.
“Where was the apology to the President?” he said.
One reporter said Mr Spicer had accepted an apology from the news outlet that made the mistake in a pool report.
Mr Spicer would not say whether he was ordered by President Trump or other staffers to make Sunday’s statement on inauguration crowd figures, but explained some of the thinking that went into it.
Like countless White House staffs before them, the Trump team is exasperated about “negative” and
“demoralising” coverage.
“When we’re right, say we’re right,” he said. “When we’re wrong, say we’re wrong. But it’s not always wrong and negative.”
Mr Spicer took no questions on Sunday, but yesterday drew a laugh when he said he’d stay at the podium for as long as the reporters wanted him there, and he nearly did.
“I’m going to stay out here as long as you want. You guys might want to leave before I do. I want to make sure we have a healthy relationship,” he said.
— NEWS CORP