White House press secretary Sean Spicer is spending more and more time behind the podium at the White House trying to contain a growing media frenzy over the Trump administration’s connections to several Russia-related probes.
The daily swarm of questions has prevented the White House from advancing other aspects of its agenda during an exercise that has historically provided administrations an opportunity to promote their talking points to a far more cooperative press corps.
Spicer has instead used his briefings to push back on a constant stream of unflattering stories, and scold reporters over the direction of their inquiries. It’s a dynamic that has forced the Trump administration into perpetual defense, despite its best efforts to lead an offensive charge on tax reform, reinvigorated healthcare negotiations and a crackdown on sanctuary cities.
On Friday, Spicer fielded 36 questions related to Russia, the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into potentially improper surveillance of President Trump’s associates and the White House’s participation in that probe. He took just 19 questions about everything else the administration is doing.
The previous day, Spicer answered 45 Russia-related questions and about 25 on other subjects ranging from tax reform, the president’s escalating attacks on the House Freedom Caucus, an upcoming visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping and potential changes to NAFTA.
Altogether, the beleaguered press secretary took 126 questions about Russia this week and 115 about all other subjects combined.
“Don’t sort of the daily questions about this make it necessary to have some type of outside, independent investigation to lift any lingering cloud that there may be?” NBC’s Kristen Welker asked on Thursday, after Russia-related intrigue had consumed days of briefings.
“I think you have two committees looking into this. The FBI has been looking into this, as they mentioned at the hearing. I mean, how many do you want?” Spicer shot back.
His frustration with the barrage of Russia questions led him to a heated exchange on Tuesday with April Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, exposing the pressure Spicer and others in the West Wing have confronted over the media’s focus on Russia-related probes.
“If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that’s a Russian connection,” Spicer quipped in response to Ryan’s question about how the Trump administration could change the perception that its alleged Russian ties had cast a shadow over its work.
Spicer refused to accept Ryan’s suggestion that the Russian narrative was a problem worthy of internal concern, and demanded at one point that she stop shaking her head during their exchange.
“We’re going to keep doing everything we’re doing to make sure that the president — that what the president told the American people he was going to do to fulfill those pledges and promises that he made, to bring back jobs, to grow the economy, to keep our nation safe — that’s what he’s been focused on since day one,” Spicer said. “We’re going to keep focusing on that every single day.”
Tensions between Republicans and Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have reflected on the White House ever since Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the committee, ever since March 22. That’s when he briefed Trump personally on his discovery that former Obama administration officials may have improperly “unmasked” the identities of Trump’s aides in surveillance reports that were disseminated widely across the federal government.
Reports later suggested Nunes had accessed those reports at a secure facility within the White House complex. That angered Democrats who had objected to Nunes’ decision to brief Trump on the grounds that doing so created a conflict of interest for his committee’s separate investigation into Russian cyberactivities during the campaign.
Nunes has since argued that he was forced to use the secure facility at the White House, rather than the several others available at the U.S. Capitol and elsewhere in Washington, because it was the only one connected to the network that housed the specific reports he sought to read.
