White House reporter April Ryan said she’s noticing a “pattern” in the way the Trump administration’s top spokesman Sean Spicer is addressing female journalists.
During an interview Wednesday on CNN, Ryan reacted to the previous day’s press briefing, during which she clashed with Spicer, who heatedly asked her to “please top shaking your head again.”
“We are the press who’s under attack,” said Ryan. “We are under attack by this administration. It’s about discrediting credible media.”
.@AprilDRyan: "We are under attack by this administration" https://t.co/3q5kPKFqZT— New Day (@NewDay) March 29, 2017
Ryan, who reports for American Urban Radio Networks, then referred to a quote from Spicer over the weekend regarding a Politico reporter who wrote something critical about White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.
“She is an idiot with no real sources,” Spicer had said of the reporter, according to Breitbart News.
Ryan said that perhaps was establishing a pattern in the way Spicer views women.
“And, you know, at this point, I happen to be a black woman but I’m part of the press, so I guess this is part of a series of two women this week who have been in the news with something over the press secretary,” she said.
She added that she would begin “looking more closely” at whether Spicer is treating women differently than her male colleagues in the press.
In an email to the Washington Examiner on Wednesday, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders defended Spicer.
“The only pattern I am aware of is that he treats all reporters equally and fairly,” she said. “Almost all of the press staff is female and I don’t know of any of them who would say Sean hasn’t treated us each with the utmost respect and to suggest he has something against women is outrageous and untrue.”
