White House press secretary blatantly lied about inauguration and everyone took the piss

If he’s going to carry on in this manner, it could be a long four years for Sean Spicer.

If there is such a thing as a honeymoon period for an incoming US president then it didn’t last very long for Donald Trump, although he wasn’t involved in a rather bizarre clash between the White House and the media on Saturday, the day after his inauguration. In an address prior to what will be the first official press briefing on Monday, new White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had a few things he wanted to discuss with the media, but primarily he wanted to settle a few scores with regard to the reporting of the size of the crowds at Friday’s inauguration. The gulf in the size of the attendance at Donald Trump’s inauguration and at Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 was widely reported on Friday, with aerial photos in particular seeming to suggest that far more people had turned up for Obama’s shindig eight years ago. Sean Spicer wasn’t at all happy about the “inaccurate” coverage of the crowds at the inauguration, claiming that photos had been doctored to prove a point and, in relation to the crowds at Trump’s inauguration on Friday, saying: “This was the largest audience to witness an inauguration. Period. Both in person and around the globe.” https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/822939003234041856 Spicer’s claims were undermined somewhat by the fact that immediately prior to making them, he had suggested that “no one had numbers” to back up reports that the crowds for Obama’s inauguration were far bigger than for Trump’s. As well as that, according to CNN, figures quoted during Spicer’s speech about the number of people that used the D.C. Metro public transit were way off and he wasn’t prepared to take any questions immediately after the briefing. Spicer’s confrontational approach and flawed understanding of crowd sizes were the subject of much amusement on social media afterwards. There was this headline from CNN… https://twitter.com/cnni/status/822948510198861824 This appeared on the big screen during a Dallas Stars ice-hockey game… https://twitter.com/kenvogel/status/823025908546158592 And plenty of other people added in their two cents’ worth… https://twitter.com/davidschneider/status/822948150499561472 https://twitter.com/Justin12393LEE/status/823056342143401984 https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/823053542365822976 https://twitter.com/markzohar/status/823016081061187584 It’s going to be an interesting four years alright.