Trump Visits CIA, Spicer "News Conference"

Being too lazy to write my own summary of Trump's foolish address to the CIA and lickspittle Sean Spicer's "press conference," here's an edited version of CNN's Brian Stelter's "Reliable Sources" presentation:

Day two of the Donald Trump presidency brought the return of Trump's anti-media attacks and a jaw-dropping statement from new press secretary Sean Spicer. But an even bigger story happened in the streets of DC, NYC and dozens of other cities and towns. While Team Trump over-promised about the inauguration, the march organizers under-promised and over-delivered. The crowds were much bigger than the leaders (and the journalists there to cover the events) expected.

First came Trump...

"I have a running war with the media."



On his first morning waking up in the White House, the president apparently turned on the TV and turned angry at what he saw.

He lashed out, first in private with his aides, then in public. Speaking at CIA headquarters at 3:15 p.m., Trump started and finished a speech by criticizing the "dishonest media." Several of the things he said were inaccurate. Here's my full story about the speech...

Here are a couple examples of his exaggerations:

Trump exaggerated the size of the crowd at his swearing-in ceremony Friday and complained about what he said was unfair coverage. He said the crowd "went all the way back to the Washington Monument," but it did not. He even described the inauguration weather inaccurately, saying that the skies became "really sunny" after his speech, when in fact it remained cloudy. I'm sitting with CNN's Jim Sciutto right now... and he pointed out that the most egregious, consequential misstatement was Trump's assertion that the media "made it sound like I had a 'feud' with the intelligence community" when "it is exactly the opposite."



"The stars on the wall behind Trump, who is talking about his crowd sizes and complaining about the media, mark dead CIA operatives," LATimes columnist Cathleen Decker tweeted. CNN's Dana Bash said on air, "It's unfortunate that he said that there, on hallowed ground. It happens to be not true that we conflated things that he said. All you have to do is look at his Twitter feed to see what he said."

"The president just tried to rally CIA workforce around the idea that media is the enemy. Let that sink in," wrote the NYT's Mark Mazzetti...

As Jake Tapper deadpanned on "The Lead" Saturday afternoon: "I can't think of anything more important to the American people" than crowd size...

Then came Spicer...

While POTUS was speaking at the CIA, the White House informed the press corps that Spicer would be making some sort of statement in the briefing room later in the afternoon. Reporters waited and waited... [at least an hour] and eventually Spicer came out and stunned them.

On his first full day as press secretary, his first-ever statement from the podium was a tirade. "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period," Spicer said, contradicting all available data.

He said, without any evidence, that some photos were "intentionally framed" to downplay Trump's crowd.

In the five-minute statement, he said at least five things that are provably false.



Jim Acosta [CNN reporter] said afterward that Spicer's statement was "astonishing:" "I've never seen anything like it."

Spicer may have genuinely meant every word of what he said. But he was reading from a prepared statement, leading to speculation that someone else -- POTUS? -- wrote it for him. Ari Fleischer [W's spokesman that I hate], who had the same job as Spicer during the George W. Bush administration, tweeted, "This is called a statement you're told to make by the President. And you know the President is watching."

Some CNN commentators argued that Spicer "had no choice" but to go and say what Trump wanted him to say... Others disagreed and said Spicer should have put his foot down and refused...

Dylan Byers emails: The press conference was an embarrassment: for Spicer, for Trump, and for America. Spicer gave the impression that he lacked the integrity to tell the truth. Trump only called more attention to his relatively paltry crowds, as well as his thin-skinned self-consciousness and utter disregard for the responsibilities of his position. America suffered yet another day looking like a nation spiraling out of control.

David Maraniss: "Spicer is delivering the most irresponsible, angry & scary statement I've ever heard in WH. They are at war with press. It will not hold." Glenn Thrush: "Jaw, meet floor." Chuck Todd: "I've run out of adjectives." Maggie Haberman: "This is not a campaign or an RNC spokesman anymore. Taxpayer-funded briefing room in which several falsehoods told."

All politicians and administrations lie, but this kind of lying is different...



Fox News carried Spicer's angry lecture live. CNN made a conscious choice not to do so. Instead, reporters and control room staffers monitored the statement and reported it, with context, minutes later. When I pointed this out on Twitter, my feed was overwhelmed by people cheering the decision.

What about Spicer's credibility?

That's a big question now. Will Spicer have credibility with the White House press corps in the days, weeks and months to come? What he said was contradicted by photos and videos.

"Today the White House lied to the American public. The first day in office," Bakari Sellers said. "You can call it whatever you want to, but they lied." Peggy Nance responded: "Most of America believes Sean Spicer over all of you. His credibility is higher than yours." David Axelrod: "That is a very cynical view…"

A very plugged-in news exec pointed out to me: "Steve Bannon WANTS a grand divide between Trump and the mainstream media. He wants his world to never trust the media. Maybe this was a win for them." [When he awakes and comes out from under the bridge where he's been sleeping, Brannon is an intelligent, knowledgeable, dangerous guy.]



Media editor Alex Koppelman emails: One thing worth keeping in mind as you see all the shocked reactions to Spicer's statement: the conservative Washington Examiner's headline about it was "White House slams 'shameful' media reports downplaying inauguration crowds." The story similarly took him at his word. [They should be punching back!]

Normally, this would just be a disappointing if not totally unusual example of a skewed perspective from a partisan outlet. But consider the message the Trump team sent today, and what it has been saying about how it might shake up the press briefing room. The danger with changes to the briefing room isn’t that some network will lose the best seat in the house; it’s that the Trump team will pack the place with friendly outlets that can be trusted not to question the official line, and will treat them as if they are just as trustworthy a news source as the NYT, if not more so.

The Examiner's coverage is a reminder that there are some outlets that will be more than happy to play along...

NBC's Katy Tur notes that Spicer, in his statement, also objected to two specific tweets by reporters. This is what happened during the campaign too. "Trump's obsessed with tweets -- campaign hardly dinged me for my on-air reporting but they'd call/email to say Trump found my tweets 'disgraceful,'" Tur tweeted. She also recalled how Kellyanne Conway tracked and printed out reporters' Twitter timelines...

The Boston Globe's Matt Viser: "The White House is trying to take us into post-factual America. The press, and the public, cannot let that happen."

The Economist's David Rennie: "Why it's alarming Sean Spicer was sent out" to misstate the facts: It "implies his job is to reassure Trump loyalists, not inform USA."

WashPost's Dave Weigel: "The man who forced Spicer to give that statement controls our nuclear arsenal. Enjoy your Saturday!"



Toronto Star's Daniel Dale: "Trump's lying has always been a central story. It's not a sideshow, it's the show. Big media still largely unprepared to deal with it."

Is this what every single day will be like?

Mika Brzezinski: "Sean Spicer's first hostage video ... that was pathetic. Embarrassing. Bad. Just bad."

Joe Scarborough: "A president who speaks from hallowed ground at Langley about crowd size and press coverage may soon see his ratings drop into the 20s."

If you guessed that the inauguration would draw 30.6 million viewers, you were right! It was "significantly lower than the crowd that turned out for Barack Obama's first inauguration in 2009," Variety's Daniel Holloway reports. But it was higher than the audience for Obama's second inauguration in 2013. These #'s are for the full-day coverage, not just the swearing-in.