Sean Spicer reminisces about Trump's inauguration size
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" Wednesday night to discuss, among other topics, his much-mocked claim that President Trump largest inauguration audience ever.
In his first interview since leaving the White House, Spicer defended his January statement about the crowd size. "Yes, I'm aware of it," said a grinning and relaxed-looking Spicer when asked by Kimmel about the claim. "I appreciate the reminder of how it went down."
Kimmel asked Spicer whether he would have made a big deal of the crowd size if he hadn't been ordered to.
"If it was up to me, I would have probably worn a different suit," Spicer said jokingly. The ex-press secretary proceeded to inform Kimmel of how he wasn't planning on delivering that statement when he went into work the morning of January 22.
"The president wanted to make sure that the record got set straight," he said. The point was, Spicer said, about giving the president, who had faced heavy backlash leading up to his inauguration, the "credit he deserved."
"I think he takes a lot of that sometimes personally," Spicer said.
Kimmel then asked Spicer whether his philosophy as press secretary was to disseminate any message, regardless of its validity, from the president.
"Your job as press secretary is to represent the president's voice and to make sure you are articulating what he believes his vision on policy, on issues," Spicer responded. "Whether or not you agree or not isn't your job. Your job is to give him advice. As I said, he's the president. He decides. And that's what you sign up to do."
In another conversation about Spicer's perspective on his relationship with the White House press corps, Kimmel couldn't resist but to bring inauguration back up again.
"Do you think that's what got you off to kind of a bad start with the press corps?" Kimmel asked.
"I don't think it was probably the best start," Spicer answered chuckling.
