White House press secretary Sean Spicer, the subject of controversy following remarks about Adolf Hitler on Tuesday and mockery in “Saturday Night Live” sketches, says he really does love his job.
“I love it, honestly,” Spicer said during a forum at the Newseum on Wednesday.
“The funny thing is that is one of the things people say all the time. I truly do believe it’s an honor to have this job, it’s a privilege and if you don’t believe that, you shouldn’t be here.”
Spicer has often been combative with reporters during the daily White House briefing but he said he thinks that goes along with the territory.
The press is going to be hostile to whatever administration is in power, he said.
“It’s naturally combative because no matter what the administration is or what the party is, the press is always going to want more and that’s the nature of the relationship,” he said.
Spicer said fights over access to Trump and administration officials are the biggest issue in his job, but he’s also annoyed by the lack of accountability to the press over the use of anonymous sources.
He said the White House providing policy experts to be quoted anonymously is OK because it’s an accurate representation of a real scenario. However, when reporters call him to refute anonymous reports, there’s no way for the White House to know who is giving that information and how accurate it is.
“We get hit with a lot of this ‘There’s 18 people who said the following and we won’t tell you who they are,'” Spicer said.
