Sean Spicer selected a limited number of reporters to attend an informal briefing at the White House on Friday. The gaggle solicited howls because reporters from the New York Times, CNN and Politico were not allowed in, while ones from Bloomberg, NBC, ABC, FOX, CBS and Breitbart were.
The press secretary said it was his decision to expand the pool for the gaggle.
(Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
Below are quotes pulled from audio taken at the gaggle.
“I have said since day one that we would have some sort of gathering,” Spicer said when asked why the White House decided to hold an off-camera gaggle. “The president spoke today. We haven’t generally done briefings when the president has had a major event or an event with a world leader. We put it on the schedule yesterday that we were just going to gaggle…We don’t need to do something on camera every day.”
On why the White House provided background information this morning: It’s a pretty serious accusation, and when you see the chyrons on CNN making it appear as though we did something wrong or nefarious…We wanted to make sure we set the record straight.”
On using anonymous sourcing: “There is a way to use background sourcing to have a much more robust discussion about something. There’s a big difference between making serious allegations — us coming back on the record — and reporters saying, ‘Well, we have five sources that are unnamed that say contrary to that.’ When you look at the reporting that the New York Times initially did, it was all background sources. It basically accused the president and his campaign team of doing some very serious things. We pushed back against that at the time and we were met with, ‘Well we have unnamed sources.’ At least make somebody go on the record and say ‘Yes, I’m willing to stand behind that.'”
On Reince Priebus asking FBI to publicly knock down the reports that they were investigating ties between Trump advisers and Russian intelligence officials: “The deputy director came to us. We didn’t go to them. The deputy director came to the White House and said the story was false. If someone is coming to us and telling us it’s not a true story, all we say to them is, ‘Will your public affairs office take this phone call?’ The notion that I see on CNN that applied pressure is…We literally responded when presented with information and said, ‘Could you let the media know that?’ And the answer was we don’t want to get in the habit of doing that.”
On finding who leaked the meeting between Priebus and the FBI: “You’ve seen the president’s tweet on this today, and you’ve heard the president’s comments. This is troubling. When anyone in government who is entrusted with classified information is sharing that information widely, yeah, that’s a big problem.”
The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security "leakers" that have permeated our government for a long time. They can't even……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2017
find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2017
On the president’s alleged ties to Russia: “You can’t disprove something that doesn’t exist. He’s talked about how many times he’s talked to Putin, he has no interest in Russia. There are only so many times you can deny something that doesn’t exist. At some point, isn’t the story that the accusations that came out have been disputed? Isn’t the story that there is no story, and it’s not to the level that the New York Times has made it to be?”
On an investigation from the Department of Justice: “We’ve made it clear. If there is evidence of something, pursue it. We have nothing to hide. The president has been crystal clear constantly, over and over again. My point to you is that at some point you use words like investigation, then show us. Where is the so-called pushback or pressure? Respectfully, I find a lot of this offensive, when you talk about us pushing back on something that doesn’t exist. If they have an investigation, then they should do what they want. They should follow the law.”
When a reporter asked if this was a message Trump had delivered to the attorney general, Spicer responded, “I mean he literally swore him in. Again, respectfully, it’s insulting that the president would have to tell the attorney general to follow the law. Did you ask the same question about Obama with respect to Holder? Did CBS on the record question the Obama administration whether or not they asked the attorney general to follow the law?”
On why Priebus wanted the FBI to bat the story down that Trump or his campaign had ties to Russia: “…I’m really having a tough time understanding the logic of your question. The story gets printed in the New York Times. Just to be clear, let’s think about this for a second. They come to us with information that morning saying the story that was published was not accurate. What should have been the White House’s response?”
Reporter: “I’m not going to say what the response should have been, but do you see what I’m asking?”
Spicer: “No, I don’t. I really don’t. I think it’s insane.”
More on this same topic after a few minutes, when Spicer said, “Our job isn’t to get in the way of them doing their job, investigating something or uncovering a plot, or whatever they’re doing. But to come to somebody and say you’ve been accused of some pretty serious things and we know them not to be accurate. I mean, isn’t their job justice? If you wrote a story that was knowingly false, I would hope you would say get them to me and I’ll update the story.”
On whether there was an investigation between the Trump team and Russia at all: “I know nothing more than they told us a story was not accurate. You asked if I am aware and I am not.”
Are CNN and the New York Times not in here right now because you’re unhappy with their reporting? : “Because we had a pool and then we expanded it. It was my decision to expand the pool.”
[H/t Steve Herman for the audio]