White House press secretary Sean Spicer unloaded on reporters Monday during his first official press briefing, lamenting the “demoralizing” effect of constant negative coverage.
“It’s just unbelievably frustrating when you’re continually told, ‘It’s not big enough, it’s not good enough, you can’t win,'” Spicer said, citing stories that had downplayed President Trump’s chances of winning states like Pennsylvania and Michigan during the campaign and more recent discussions of the crowd size at Trump’s inauguration.
“It’s not just about a crowd size,” Spicer said. “The default narrative is always negative, and it’s demoralizing.”
Members of the White House press corps criticized Spicer over the weekend after he delivered a fiery statement from the podium Saturday evening, in which he chided reporters for focusing on side-by-side comparisons of Trump’s inauguration attendance and former President Obama’s.
But Spicer argued the pushback on coverage of attendance at the inauguration was part of a broader fight the White House would wage against slanted reporting on the administration.
“Sometimes we’ll make mistakes, I promise you that,” Spicer said. “Part of this is saying: When we’re right, say we’re right; when we’re wrong, say we’re wrong.”
The press secretary highlighted what he has seen as unfair stories about Trump’s campaign, transition and early presidency. Trump has sparred with the media frequently since entering the political arena in summer 2015, and reporters have in turn criticized the Trump team’s treatment of unfriendly reporters and outlets.
“He’s gone out there and defied the odds over and over and over again and he keeps getting told what he can’t do by this narrative that’s out there and he exceeds it every singe time,” Spicer said of the president. “There’s this constant attempt to undemine his credibilty and the movement that he represents.”
