Spicer slams reporters, but evidence doesn't match up

WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Sean Spicer appeared in the White House briefing room Saturday to deliver a short and combative statement accusing the news media of "deliberately false reporting" by misrepresenting inaugural crowd sizes and artwork in the Oval Office.

But the evidence that Spicer cited to attack the reporting does not match numbers from official sources, particularly with regard to crowd sizes.

​The new press secretary complained of two issues:

► A tweet by a Time Magazine reporter saying that President Trump had removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office, replacing it with one of Winston Churchill. But the King bust was simply relocated to another spot in the office. The reporter quickly corrected the error, but the inaccurate information was also distributed to other reporters via a pool report.

"This was irresponsible and reckless," Spicer said.

► Crowd estimates of the inaugural. Spicer said photographs were deliberately selected to make the crowds look smaller than they are — in part because ground coverings used for the first time to protect the grass made the empty spots look emptier, he said. (Similar ground cover was used on the Mall during President Obama's 2013 inauguration, which was more heavily attended.)

"No one had numbers because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put those out," he said.

Spicer pointed to turnstile numbers for the Washington Metro, but appeared to compare inaccurate or part-day numbers. "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."

Those numbers are wrong. According to the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority, the system saw 1.1 million one-way trips for President Obama's first inauguration in 2009, and 782,000 for his second inauguration in 2013.

The number for Inauguration Day 2017: 570,557, according to WMATA.

"This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe," he said. "These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong."

But the television audience, at least domestically, was smaller than that for Obama's first inauguration in 2009. According to Nielsen, 30.6 million people tuned in for Trump's inauguration Friday, compared to 37.8 in 2009.

Spicer walked away from the podium as reporters asked — and then shouted — questions about the women's marches without answering questions.

The tone of the statement was noted immediately by observers, including some of Trump's fellow Republicans.

"This is called a statement you're told to make by the president," tweeted Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush's first press secretary. "And you know the president is watching."

"It is embarrassing, as an American, to watch this briefing by Sean Spicer from the podium at the White House," tweeted conservative commentary William Kristol, a leader of the conservative "Never Trump" movement. "Not the RNC. The White House."

Spicer spoke as photos of tweets and inaugural crowds appeared on two monitors behind him.

He said Trump was warmly received at CIA headquarters during a visit Saturday. "It's a shame that the president did not have a CIA director to be there when he visited, because Democrats are playing politics with national security and delaying his confirmation," he said. "That's what you guys should be writing about today."

It was Spicer's second appearance at the White House podium as press secretary, following an announcement of an executive order Friday night. Spicer also made a number of other announcements Saturday:

The president will swear in White House aides on Sunday, when they will receive briefings on ethics and the handling of classified information, Spicer said. British Prime Minister Theresa May will visit the White House on Friday.

Trump had spoken to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña-Nieto, with a visit with the Mexican leader scheduled for Jan. 31 to talk about trade, immigration and security.

It was unclear whether the visit would be in Washington or Mexico City, and the White House did not immediately clarify.

Read more:

Trump attacks the media in CIA speech and praises his election win