President Donald Trump signed off on press secretary Sean Spicer’s decision to check aides’ cell phones to make certain they weren’t communicating with reporters by text message or through encrypted apps, multiple sources confirmed to CNN on Monday.
The decision sent a signal across the administration that Trump is furious at leaks from inside the White House. The sources also said the President gave his blessing before Spicer blocked reporters from the briefing last Friday.
When reached by CNN, Spicer denied that Trump was involved in either decision.
“(Trump) did not sign off or even know what I did. That is not accurate,” he said, later adding, “I don’t believe he even knew there was a gaggle and in no way was it discussed with him or any other staffer.”
On Friday, CNN and other news outlets were blocked from attending an off-camera White House press briefing that other reporters were hand-picked to attend.
And Politico reported on Sunday that Spicer was cracking down on leaks coming out of the White House, where at one point staffers were asked to dump their phones on a table for a “phone check.”
The sources also told CNN that Trump and his top advisers also knew of the contacts Spicer and others made to intelligence chairmen and other government officials, hoping to push back on news accounts of Russian links.
The sources added that Spicer is on higher standing inside the West Wing than he has been in earlier weeks. He has been eager to prove his loyalty but has also not pushed back on carrying out any orders or requests from the Oval Office.
One person close to the situation described Spicer as the “enforcer.”
The White House apparently attempted to smear a critical reporter by planting a story about him laughing at the mention of a Navy SEAL’s death.
Politico published a story Sunday morning by Alex Isenstadt and Annie Karni on a surprise meeting called by White House press secretary Sean Spicer to examine aides’ phones and other electronic devices for evidence of leaks.
When multiple sources leaked details of that meeting to Isenstadt and Karni, it appears other White House officials slapped back at one of the Politico reporters using the death of a Navy SEAL killed just days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in a controversial Yemen raid.
The Washington Examiner published a story Sunday evening, about six and a half hours after the “phone check” report broke, that claims one of the Politico reporters mocked a Trump aide’s emotional reaction to the death of Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens.
Politico’s editor, Carrie Budoff Brown, accused the White House of anonymously planting a false story to smear one of the website’s reporters.
Reporter writes story WH doesn't like/disputes. WH anonymously plants false story about reporter. https://t.co/2ZGue3uxfz
Trump complained last week that anonymous sources should be banned as sources of “fake news.”
Isenstadt and Karni reported that Spicer had caused deputy communications director Jessica Ditt to cry after criticizing her work at a staff meeting — but the press secretary offered a denial to Politico.
“The only time Jessica recalls almost getting emotional is when we had to relay the information on the death of Chief Ryan Owens,” Spicer said.
Hours after that story broke, “one informed official” told the Examiner‘s Paul Bedard that Isenstadt “appeared dismissive and laughed” at Spicer’s denial.
“He started laughing about that SEAL,” the “informed official” told the Examiner.
That anonymous White House source also complained that Politico had described Ditt as a “more junior spokesperson,” which the official found “insulting.”
Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring flatly denied that Isenstadt had laughed at the reference to Owens’ death, and the Examiner’s Bedard defended his use of the anonymous source for his report.
CNN and other news organizations were blocked Friday from a White House press briefing.
There was no immediate explanation from the White House.
The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Politico were also excluded from the meeting, which is known as a gaggle and is less formal than the televised Q-and-A session in the White House briefing room.
The Associated Press and Time magazine boycotted the briefing because of how it was handled. The White House Correspondents Association is protesting.
The conservative media organizations Breitbart News, The Washington Times and One America News Network were allowed in.
Hours earlier, at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, President Trump mocked and disparaged the news media. He said that much of the press represents “the enemy of the people.”
“They are the enemy of the people because they have no sources,” Trump said. “They just make them up when there are none.”
He also said reporters “shouldn’t be allowed” to use unnamed sources.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday blasted CNN for its reporting on an unverified dossier alleging that the Russian government has compromising information about President Trump.
“We continue to be disgusted by CNN’s fake news reporting,” he told the news network when contacted about its latest report Friday.
CNN said Spicer later called the network back to add to his criticism.
“It is about time CNN focused on the success the President has had bringing back jobs, protecting the nation, and strengthening relationships with Japan and other nations,” Spicer said. “The president won the [2016] election because of his vision and message for the nation. This is fake news.”
CNN reported earlier Friday that it had confirmed some of the communications between foreign nationals detailed in the 35-page dossier with multiple current and former U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials.
The items that were corroborated related solely to conversations between foreign nationals. But sources would not verify which specific conversations were intercepted or their content due to the classified nature of U.S. intelligence gathering programs.
The dossier contains about 12 discussions between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals, it said. CNN could not determine if any those talks discussed then GOP-presidential nominee Trump.
CNN’s sources did affirm some of the described conversations took place on the same dates and from the same locations as listed in the dossier.
U.S. intelligence officials emphasized the conversations were solely between foreign nationals, including those in or tied to the Russian government, and intercepted during routine intelligence gathering.
Two officials told CNN some of the individuals whose conversations were captured were “heavily involved” in collecting information to discredit 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
CNN added that officials could not decide whether the Kremlin possesses any compromising information relating to Trump.
BuzzFeed first published the controversial document, which has not been substantiated, before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Trump blasted BuzzFeed as a “failing pile of garbage” in January over the dossier, which alleges Russia’s government has acquired compromising financial and personal information about him.
The president also began slamming CNN as “fake news” during the same press conference after it reported intelligence officials had briefed him over its unsubstantiated contents.
CNN’s corporate public relations department rebutted White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer just 12 minutes after he falsely claimed that the network had “retracted” its claim about the “credibility” of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway.
In a statement to The New York Times and other publications earlier this week, CNN said that it had refused to interview Conway on a recent Sunday morning program due to “serious questions about her credibility.”
On Tuesday, Spicer falsely insisted that CNN had “retracted” that claim.
“Frankly, my understanding is that they retracted that,” Spicer told reporters at Tuesday’s White House press briefing. “They walked that back or denied or however you want to put it, I don’t care.”
“Kellyanne is a very trusted aide of the president,” he added. “I think for any characterization otherwise is insulting. If they choose not to work with someone, that’s up to them.”
Within 12 minutes, CNN had posted a statement refuting Spicer’s claim.
“CNN was clear, on the record, about our concerns about Kellyanne Conway to the New York Times and others,” a statement posted to Twitter read. “We have not ‘retracted’ nor ‘walked back’ those comments. Those are the facts.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is citing the Sunday attack on Muslims in Quebec City as an example of why his own policies are needed.
“We condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms. It’s a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant, and why the president is taking steps to be proactive, rather than reactive, when it comes to our nation’s safety and security,” press secretary Sean Spicer said at his daily briefing on Monday.
Spicer did not specifically identify the policies he was referring to.
Spicer used similar words when asked directly about the travel ban later in the briefing, saying Trump was not going to “wait and react.”
“There is nothing nice about searching for terrorists before they can enter our country. This was a big part of my campaign. Study the world!” Trump himself wrote on Twitter earlier Monday.
The Quebec City massacre killed six Muslims who were attending a mosque for evening prayers. Trump’s policies have been condemned by Muslim groups and many others around the world as discrimination against Muslims.
Trump spoke to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier on Monday.
Spicer said Trump offers “his condolences as well as his thoughts and prayers to the victims and their family and to all Canadians.”
He noted that Trudeau was “cautious to draw conclusions of the motives at this stage of the investigation.” He said “the president shared those thoughts.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer had a stern message for State Department employees opposed to President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries: “Either get with the program or they can go.”
Dozens of career diplomats have signed on to a “dissent channel” document, which is a mechanism by which State Department employees can express policy disagreements privately without fear of retribution. The memo has been circulating in the agency and it expresses the view that the immigration ban “will not achieve its aim of making our country safer.”
Asked to respond to the document, Spicer suggested that the “career bureaucrats” who disagreed with the executive order should not continue to serve in the government.
“This is about the safety of America, and there’s a reason that a majority of Americans agree with the president,” Spicer said. “They should understand it’s his number one priority.”
Asked to clarify whether he was suggesting that public servants who disagree with the president should leave their posts, Spicer doubled down.
“If somebody has a problem with that agenda, then that does call into question whether … they should continue in that post or not,” Spicer said. “I know the president appreciates the people who serve this nation and the public servants.
“That’s up to them to question whether or not they want to stay,” he added.
Last night, Sean Spicerretweeted a video from satirical news publication the Onion. “You nailed it,” Spicer tweeted, along with the video which listed “Five Things to Know About Sean Spicer.” Except it seems like maybe Spicer — who remember, as White House Press Secretary, is partially in the business of watching videos and reading tweets — didn’t watch the video or read the Onion’s tweet as carefully as he could have … since they declare Spicer’s “role in the Trump administration will be to provide the American public with robust and clearly articulated misinformation.”
The video’s “things to know” also include Spicer’s former role as a senior correspondent for NPR (false), his “defensive” speaking style (slightly less false), and his questionable pocket squares (style is subjective, I guess). Thing-to-know number four is “whether or not Spicer has ever knowingly lied to the press.” “One’s own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of one’s experience,” the Onion explains in its answer.
President Donald Trump‘s counselor Kellyanne Conway said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer used “alternative facts” when he falsely called the crowds at Trump’s swearing-in ceremony “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.”
Spicer on Saturday gave a five-minute statement to the press riddled with falsehoods and claimed photos showing clearly that the audience for Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration was significantly larger than Trump’s on Friday was an attempt by the media to “minimize enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall.”
Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, Conway staunchly defended Spicer, and said his untrue statements were “alternative facts.” When asked by host Chuck Todd why Spicer used his first appearance in front of the press to proclaim falsehoods, Conway said Todd was being “overly dramatic” about the statement.
“You’re saying it’s a falsehood, and they’re giving- Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that,” she said.
Todd countered Conway: “Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods.”
"Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods," Chuck Todd tells Pres. Trump's counselor Kellyanne Conway this morning. WATCH: pic.twitter.com/Ao005dQ13r
“That’s what you guys should be writing and covering,” new White House press secretary Sean Spicer angrily lectured reporters on Saturday during his first remarks from the podium of the press briefing room.
He was referring to the delay in Senate confirmation for President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the CIA, Congressman Mike Pompeo, but the comment came after a long digression about how many people had shown up to watch Trump be sworn in as president.
“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period,” Spicer said, contradicting all available data.
Aerial photos have indicated that former president Barack Obama’s first inauguration attracted a much larger crowd. Nielsen ratings show that Obama also had a bigger television audience.
Spicer said, without any evidence, that some photos were “intentionally framed” to downplay Trump’s crowd.
He also expressed objections to specific Twitter posts from journalists. And he said, “we’re going to hold the press accountable,” partly by reaching the public through social networking sites.
His statement included several specific misstatements of fact in addition to the overarching one.
“This is the first time in our nation’s history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall,” Spicer said, claiming that this “had the effect of highlighting areas people were not standing whereas in years past the grass eliminated this visual.”
In fact, coverings were used for Obama’s second inauguration in 2013.
“This was also the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the Mall, preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being able to access the Mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past,” Spicer said.
In fact, a United States Secret Service spokesperson told CNN, no magnetometers were used on the Mall.
And Spicer said, “We know that 420,000 people used the D.C, Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 for president Obama’s last inaugural.”
Spicer’s number for ridership on Friday was actually low — the correct number, according to Metro itself, was 570,557. But there were actually 782,000 trips taken for Obama’s second inaugural in 2013.
Spicer, at times almost yelling while reading a prepared statement, took no questions. CNNMoney called his cell phone a few minutes later; he did not answer.
Some longtime White House correspondents were stunned by the tirade.
Glenn Thrush of The New York Times wrote on Twitter, “Jaw meet floor.”
“I’ve run out of adjectives,” wrote Chuck Todd, the moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post said Spicer’s assertion about “what you guys should be writing” was “chilling.”
Reactions were overwhelmingly negative, and not just from journalists.
Ari Fleischer, 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.”
And Brian Fallon, who was in line to become press secretary if Hillary Clinton had won, wrote, “Sean Spicer lacks the guts or integrity to refuse orders to go out and lie. He is a failure in this job on his first full day.”
Conservative commentator Bill Kristol said “it is embarrassing, as an American, to watch this briefing by Sean Spicer from the podium at the White House. Not the RNC. The White House.”
The White House alerted the press corps to Spicer’s statement more than an hour ahead of time.
The CNN television network made a choice not to broadcast the Spicer statement live. Instead, the statement was monitored and then reported on after the fact.
Former Democratic congressman Steve Israel, who recently joined CNN as a commentator, said, “This isn’t a petty attack on the press. It’s a calculated attempt to delegitimize any questioning of @realDonaldTrump by a free press.”
Spicer’s statement came two hours after Trump spoke at CIA headquarters and described his “running war with the media.” Trump spent several minutes of that speech complaining about news coverage.
In his remarks, Spicer suggested Trump would bypass traditional media outlets he believes are unfairly reporting on his presidency.
“The American people deserve better, and so long as he serves as the messenger for this incredible movement, he will take his message directly to the American people, where his focus will always be,” Spicer said.
Spicer was joined in the Brady Press Briefing Room by members of his new White House press and communications staff, who are still moving into their offices and learning the way around the West Wing.
He tellingly led off his short statement with his tirade against the media, leaving announcements about phone calls with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, and announcing that Trump would meet with British Prime Minister Theresa May, to the end.
During those announcements, Spicer incorrectly referred to Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto as “prime minister.”
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