White House press secretary Sean Spicer had the special task Monday—even by Trump-era standards—of trying to cover for a witless leader who in the last several days has cozied up to brutal foreign leaders (plural!), weighed the upsides of a gas tax, and walked out of an interview that was frankly just a little too reality-based for him. Here’s just a glimpse of Spicey trying to walk back Trump’s deluge of doozies.
Good god, what is Spicer talking about? Kim Jong Un leads the country Trump tagged just last week as being on a collision course with the U.S. for a “major, major conflict.” Now Spicey’s tapping Un as a “forward“ mover? Yep! (BTW, if you’re wondering about Trump extending a White House invite to murderous Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, Spicer confirmed that Trump was “fully briefed” on his abysmal human rights record.) Next?
In other words, he doesn’t want to offend a special interest group, but he’s fine with alienating all those everyday voters out there who don’t have the agency to gain an audience with him like a special interest group did. Now there’s some political spin you probably didn’t think of—and that’s why you’re not Trump’s press secretary.
And then Spicer revisited Trump’s 100-day capstone interview with CBS’s John Dickerson, in which Dickerson asked Trump just a few too many questions about his baseless charge that President Obama wiretapped his phones and was a “bad or sick” guy.
“You stand by that claim about him?” the nettlesome Dickerson asked, to which Trump retorted, “I don’t stand by anything.”
At Monday’s press briefing, an enterprising reporter wondered, “How is the American public supposed to digest that—supposed to trust what the president says when he himself says of his own comments, ‘I don't stand by anything.’”
Spicer asked for context. When the reporter recounted the wiretapping exchange between Trump and Dickerson about Obama being a “bad or sick” guy, the fog lifted for Spicer.
”He clearly stands by that,” Spicer responded.
Whew! Thanks for clearing that up, Spicey. Whether it’s maligning a former president or falsely accusing him of something he didn’t do, we can rest assured that Trump is sticking to his story—even if he says he isn’t!
Below is the Trump/Dickerson exchange from Saturday: