These Are All Of Sean Spicer's Comments That Were Debunked
Sean Spicer has made a name for himself outside of politics since he resigned from being press secretary in July 2017. But many will remember him for what he said during his short tenure at the podium — especially the lies. "Sometimes we can disagree with the facts," Spicer famously said during a press briefing, officially bringing "alternative facts" into the mainstream. Sometimes the lies weren't Spicer's, but he supported them anyway, like when former president Trump claimed there had been "three million fraudulent votes in the 2016 election" (via Vanity Fair).
In a 2018 interview with HLN commentor S.E. Cupp, Spicer admitted that he regretted a few of his most famous false claims. One of those claims was when he said that Hilter didn't use chemical weapons against his own people during an April 2017 press briefing. Talking about Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Spicer not only claimed that Hitler didn't use chemical weapons, but that Al-Assad was worse. "You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons," Spicer said of president Al-Assad. Looking back on the moment, Spicer told Cupp that he had been trying to "talk about how evil Assad was and I screwed that up royally."
Sean Spicer lied about the 2017 Presidential Inauguration
Some of Sean Spicer's lies were bigger than others. Spicer's biggest, or at least most infamous lie, was about the crowd size at former President Donald Trump's 2017 inauguration. He claimed that the entire space between the inauguration platform back to the Washington Monument was completely full of people which he estimated to be around 800,000 people. Just by looking at pictures of the event, though, you can see for yourself that Spicer's claim of the space being full wasn't true. Spicer's numbers themselves were baffling, and according to CNN, the White House didn't respond when they asked for more details.
But crowd size wasn't the only comment Spicer made about the 2017 inauguration that was debunked. "This was the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall," Spicer claimed during a press conference. However, a former senior Interior Department official told CNN that "The National Park Service used a similar grass protective layer in 2013." Photos from the 2013 inauguration also show the ground covers.
Spicer also claimed that the 2017 inauguration was "the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the Mall." But according to the U.S. Secret Service, which is responsible for securing the presidential inaugurations, that while there was an extended secured area, security only checked bags. Metal detectors, including hand wands, were not used, according to a Secret Service spokesperson.
Sean Spicer lied about Trump Tower
On two different occasions, Sean Spicer claimed things were happening in Trump Tower when they weren't. In March 2017, former President Donald Trump had tweeted that he had "just found out" that during the election Trump Tower had been wiretapped by former President Barack Obama. When asked about it at a press briefing, Spicer didn't refute what Trump said. "We started a hearing. It's still on going," Spicer told the press. "I think there's a lot of areas that still need to be covered. There's a lot of information that still needs to be discussed."
Then in July 2017, the real reason there was a meeting at Trump Tower with the Russians was revealed. In his first White House press briefing in weeks, Spicer went in front of the press corp and told them "[t]here was nothing, as far as we know, that would lead anyone to believe that there was anything except for discussion about adoption and the Magnitsky Act." However, Donald Trump Jr. had already released statements about this meeting, stating that he had asked for the meeting "with an individual who [he] was told might have information helpful to the campaign." While Trump Jr.'s statement went on to explain that the Russian lawyer kept steering the conversation back towards adoption, there was no reason for Spicer to ignore what had already been said about the meeting.