A former White House press secretary advised Sean Spicer on Monday to “cool the confrontation down” with the press after bashing the media during his first briefing on Saturday.
Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, joined “CBS This Morning” to discuss White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s confrontation with the media over President Trump’s inauguration crowd size.
Spicer turned up the angst, condemning the media for what he claimed to be “deliberately false reporting” in attempt “to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration.”
Spicer made several claims that have been discredited by journalist, but Fleischer thinks he can save face.
“My advice to Sean today is if you used a statistic that is wrong, correct it today. There’s no harm done if you’re press secretary and saying I got statistics wrong and walk it back,” Fleischer said.
Fleischer thinks President Trump ordered Spicer to discipline the press and said that Spicer is now going to get challenged during Monday’s press conference.
“It concerns me, it’s one thing to take on the press — that’s a time-honored tradition in Washington, D.C — [but] take them on though when you have high ground. The part about how people showed up in the audience at the inauguration, who cares, it’s not worth fighting over,” Fleischer said. “Your job is to be neutral, fair and accurate.”
Watch the video below.