White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer: ‘Our Intention is Never to Lie to You’

[John Eder]

38944In his first official briefing as White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer told the press that "our intention is never to lie to you", but refused to walk back his widely-disputed claim that the inauguration was the most-watched ever "both in-person and around the globe."

"I believe that we have to be honest with the American people. I think sometimes we can disagree with the facts. there are certain things that we may... we may not fully understand when we come out but our intention is never to lie to you," he said.

This sounds really familiar...

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf is a former Iraqi diplomat and politician. He came to wide prominence around the world during the 2003 invasion of Iraq (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq), during which he was the Iraqi Information Minister (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Information_Minister) under Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein), acting as the spokesperson for the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Socialist_Ba%27ath_Party_%E2%80%93_Iraq_Region) and Saddam's regime.

He is best known for his grandiose and grossly unrealistic propaganda broadcasts before and during the war, extolling the invincibility of the Iraqi Army (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Army) and the permanence of Saddam's rule. His announcements were met with widespread derision and amusement by Western nationals and others with access to up-to-date information from international media organizations. In the US he was popularly known as Baghdad Bob and in Britain as Comical Ali (a joke derived from Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Hassan_al-Majid), who was also known as "Chemical Ali").

"It has been rumored that we have fired scud missiles into Kuwait. I am here now to tell you, we do not have any scud missiles and I don't know why they were fired into Kuwait."

[Barry]

In his first official briefing as White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer told the press that "our intention is never to lie to you", but refused to walk back his widely-disputed claim that the inauguration was the most-watched ever "both in-person and around the globe."...

I watched the full press briefing this morning. While their intention may not be to lie to us, it certainly is to mis-lead us! This continues the Trumpian technique of speaking in ambiguous (and sometimes nearly indecipherable) terms that leaves one impression, but can be defended using a less common interpretation.

In this case, "both in-person and around the globe" would be commonly construed to mean most watched in-person and separately the most-watched around the globe [EDIT: especially all his prior comments referred to in-person viewership of the inauguration]. But Spicer defended it, I thought successfully, as the total of in-person plus around the globe. See the press conference here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xh04Pr4nj4). He defends his statement at 59 min and 10 seconds.

[John Eder]

Per Reuters, 1/22/2017:

"Nearly 31 million viewers watched live U.S. television coverage of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, far fewer than tuned in to Barack Obama's first swearing-in, but otherwise the biggest such audience since Ronald Reagan entered office, ratings firm Nielsen reported on Saturday.
The tally for Trump - 30.6 million viewers on 12 broadcast and cable networks that aired live coverage from about 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST - surpassed the TV audiences measured for his two most recent Republican predecessors - both inaugurations of George W. Bush and the one of his father, George H.W. Bush.

The 2009 inauguration of Obama, who became the nation's first African-American president that year, was watched by nearly 38 million viewers, the second-highest number since Nielsen began compiling such figures with Richard Nixon's 1969 oath of office.

Only Reagan drew a bigger U.S. TV inauguration audience, with nearly 42 million viewers tuning in to see the California Republican sworn in for his first term in 1981. Just 25 million watched Reagan take his second oath of office four years later."

They are still awaiting the viewership ratings from Monaco, Luxembourg, Albania, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, etc.

I believe that Trump possibly tried to count the number of viewers on the fingers of his tiny hands...

[Barry]

Per Reuters, 1/22/2017:

"Nearly 31 million viewers watched live U.S. television coverage of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration...
Just as we expect Trump/Spicer to not be misleading, we need to be, too. If we accept their defense of total audience for the inauguration, then that includes online streaming, too, which is how I watched it. What's television??

Of all Trump's boastful claims, overall viewership of his major events (/debacles) is most likely to be met. They are hard to resist looking at, just like traffic accidents.

[John Eder]

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