Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer came clean Thursday on HLN’s SE Cupp Unfiltered in what amounted to a giant confession.
“There were times where I screwed up. There’s no question about it,” Spicer told a host he described to The Mirror as his longtime friend.
There was an event around Inauguration when he spoke of President Bashar al-Assad. He said he screwed the whole thing up “royally.” At the time, he said al-Assad was guilty of worse acts than Adolf Hitler. He even insisted that Hitler hadn’t used chemical weapons, forgetting those pesky gas chambers.
“Brought up Hitler,” Cupp said.
“Thank you for reminding me,” Spicer replied pointedly.
Spicer explained, “Look, I’m a very self-critical person. I sat back and said ..that’s not my credibility. I honestly went out everyday to do the best job I could for the President of the United States … and the American people. When I screwed up, yeah, it felt really bad. You’re realizing that you’re tarnishing your personal reputation, your family’s reputation, your friends who like you and support you and some of your colleagues.”
Ultimately Spicer insisted he never outright lied on behalf of the president.
“No,” he replied.
He expanded on that, saying, “When you get up at that podium, your goal is to tell the media and the American people the best information you have at the time. At no time did I go up and say something that was demonstrably false intentionally.”
Spicer said he did his best to provide information as it became available — a notion some White House reporters may find absurd.