He takes no responsibility for anything

Q:  You said you don't take any responsibility, what about shutting down NSC global coordinating unit?

A:  I think that's a nasty question.  We're doing great.

Then he says he doesn't know anything about shutting anything down.

He also says he doesn't know anything about the Brazilian minister he was pictured with and who has tested positive for coronavirus.  When reminded that Dr. Fauci just said anyone who has stood next to someone who tests positive should have a test, Trump says he'll probably have a test.  "Not for that reason."

UPDATE:

Then who the hell did?

No responsibility.

Video of the exchange between lying Trump and the reporter about shutting down the pandemic team.

Video of Trump being cornered into saying he'll "probably" get tested.

Where's Sarah Sanders?

The White House has all but ended press conferences.  You want to know what's going on?  I guess you'll just have to follow Trump's Twitter feed.  Or Fox News.

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi has press conferences weekly.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Cameras Are Back

Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is scheduled to give the White House’s first on-camera press briefing since June 29 at 2:00 p.m. ET, shortly after press secretary Sean Spicer resigned Frida morning.

  TPM

Does anybody have any sense of why they were banned in the first place?  So Saturday Night Live wouldn't have any visual to work off?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Et Tu, Brutus?

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer got into a heated debate with a Breitbart journalist over whether President Donald Trump’s much vaunted Mexican border barrier is a wall or merely a fence.

  RT

Breitbart?!

“This is what exists right now throughout our country,” Spicer said as [he presented a] slideshow reveal[ing] the current, tattered-looking, border fences.

When slides switched to the proposed new “walls” that would be funded by the new spending bill, Spiering asked: “Are those photos of fences or walls?”

“There are various types of walls that can be built under the legislation that was just passed,” Spicer responded.

“That is a fence,” Spiering stated.

“That is called a levee wall, that’s the actual name of it,” Spicer replied.

“So that’s the wall Trump promised?” Spiering asked.

In the ensuing argument, Spiering accused Spicer of trying to mislead the public into supporting the “existing tough-guy fencing thing” instead of a real wall.

Of course, that's a straw man. A fence is as good as a wall in the case of a border barrier. Neither one will make a spoonful of beans difference.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

P.S.  It's actually a funny thing - set up that went wrong.  Spicer is a doofus.  An ignorant, arrogant little man with a temper, to be sure, but a doofus.

Be Careful What You Wish For

The White House on Friday tried attack as a form of defence, deflecting questions about Donald Trump’s possible links to Russia by leveling serious allegations at Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and chastising reporters for not investigating them.

At his daily briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer was even more combative than usual as he clashed with journalists from the New York Times and other outlets and accused the Obama administration of “potentially” leaking classified information for political ends.

[...]

“All of this should be very concerning to people that people in an administration, people serving in government, who are provided classified information, who are given clearance in the trust of the United States government, misused, mishandled and potentially did some very bad things with classified information.

“That astonishes me that that is not the subject of this, that all of this is happening in our country."

  The Guardian

This pressure to pursue the leaks could seriously backfire. (See here.)

On Friday, Spicer proved unable or unwilling to answer basic questions about key times, days and dates and whether or not records of visitors to the White House grounds were kept.

[...]

On Friday, Spicer insisted there has been “no evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, then turned to an attack on Trump’s defeated rival, Clinton. The former secretary of state, he said, was the architect of a failed “reset policy” with Russia, which she told that country’s state TV was designed to “strengthen Russia”.

He went on: “She used her office to make concession after concession, selling off one fifth of our country’s uranium. Paid speeches, paid deals, getting personal calls from Vladimir Putin. I think if they really want to talk about a Russian connection in the substance, that’s where we should be looking. That, not there.”

And that could be the same mistake the Clinton campaign made - talking about the opponent rather than clearing up your own shit.

The claim that Clinton “sold off” US uranium echoed claims by Trump regarding a 2010 sale in which Clinton was one of nine administration figures to sign off, claims which have been debunked by fact-checking websites as, at best, considerable distortions of the truth.

Apparently, this was a very testy press conference, and I'm guessing things are not going to get better between the Trump White House and reporters.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

So Now, We're a Dictatorship

The subject was raised at an event hosted by Politico in December, before Spicer had been named as President Trump’s press secretary. Politico’s Jake Sherman raised the question of how a Trump White House might deal with outlets it didn’t like, given that some had been blocked from attending Trump campaign events.

“One of the things that the Trump campaign gained notoriety for, and was criticized for, was banning reporters and banning outlets,” Sherman said, noting that Politico was one of those outlets. “You’ve said, I think, that that’s not going to happen . . . ?”

“Look, there’s a big difference between a campaign where it is a private venue using private funds and a government entity,” Spicer replied. “I think we have a respect for the press when it comes to the government. That is something you can’t ban an entity from.”

“Conservative, liberal or otherwise,” he continued, “that’s what makes a democracy a democracy versus a dictatorship. I think there is a vastly different model when it comes to government and what should be expected, and that’s on both sides.”

  WaPo

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He's Not Going to Get Over It

via GIPHY

Just as a reminder to the press that what he says will be what you print.  Or else.

And guess what...

His head and his gut are bigger, though.  And you people are going to make his head explode.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

So That's How It's Going to Be

Press briefings to berate (read: warn) the press.



He did TOO have a big audience.  The best audience.  The BIGGEST audience.

And the CIA LOVES him.

And let me tell YOU what you need to be reporting.

You have been warned.


(ed:  Prime Minister "Pinionato" of Mexico.)

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

But didn't you hear what he said?  There was grass on the mall when Obama was inaugurated.  That made it less obvious where the empty spaces were than the white stuff they put down for Trump.

Time lapse video of mall "crowd".

pic.twitter.com/uZWiKw0rRm

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) January 22, 2017

Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, used his first White House briefing to shout at journalists about what he incorrectly termed “deliberately false reporting” on Trump’s inauguration, declaring: “We’re going to hold the press accountable.”

“This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period,” said Spicer, in one of several statements contradicted by photographs and transit data. “These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong.”

Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House aide, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday Spicer had merely been offering “alternative facts”, a phrase that was received with widespread astonishment.

[...]

Trump was earlier sharply criticised for delivering a campaign-style speech in front of a memorial to fallen CIA officers. Saying he was at “war with the media”, Trump called accurate news reports about his inaugural crowd being smaller than Barack Obama’s “a lie”.

[...]

Reince Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, also echoed Trump’s false claims in interviews on Sunday.

  Guardian

UPDATE:

Perhaps the worst assertion was that “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.” That statement was instantly ridiculed. Obama’s 2009 Inauguration was a record breaker. Moreover the television audience was smaller: 30.6 million compared to 41.8 million for Reagan in 1981 and 37.7 million for Obama in 2009.

[...]

Spicer appears clearly wrong in saying that “We know that 420,000 people used the D.C. Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama’s last inaugural.” He is right about the 317,000 figure. This was the number of people who traveled before 11 am — in time for the Inaugural speech. If the same period is used for this Inauguration, the figure for Trump would be 193,000. In terms of the whole day, there were 570,557 — a very large number. However, in 2013, the full day ridership was 782,000 and in 2009 it was 1.1 million.

[...]

Again, we are only crunching number because the White House used the first press conference almost exclusively to this dispute. Instead of focusing on the hundreds of thousands of people who were there and their celebration in pulling off one of the greatest upsets in U.S. political history, Spicer (and the President). made this the framing story of the first 24 hours of this Administration.

[...]

Trump has started to keep his promises on the ACA and other issues. That should have been the focus of the conference to convey that Trump remains committed to being a vehicle for change. Rather than convey strength, the conference conveyed a hypersensitivity and insecurity.

  Jonathan Turley

I might use a different word than "conveyed". Such as "revealed".

Trump Administration motto: Cut off your nose to spite your face.