Sean Spicer opened up about his time in the White House, telling BBC program “Newsnight” on Monday that there were moments where he was incredibly “lonely,” and conceded that he could have done a “better job.”
“There are things I would absolutely love to do over or that I could have done better. I had to do them in front of millions of people and I wish I could have done a better job,” said Spicer in a previously unseen level of contrition from the former White House press secretary.
“There were days that were extremely lonely in that job because I screwed up,” he added, while also noting that he was still extremely honored at having been given the opportunity to serve in the role.
"I wish I could've done a better job" – former White House press secretary Sean Spicer speaks to Emily Maitlis in his first UK interview.
Watch the full interview here: https://t.co/ah2xNUnimy@seanspicer | @maitlis | #newsnight pic.twitter.com/uuj0CaIgSJ— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) July 23, 2018
Spicer appeared on the program to promote his new book, “The Briefing,” which chronicles his stormy six-month tenure as White House press secretary. Sales have not been good so far, and Spicer’s European media tour is an attempt to attract readers in regions less saturated by Trump coverage.
Spicer was the voice of the Trump administration for its first six months. His daily press briefings were often extraordinarily contentious and for a time, became must-see TV.
In his first day on the job, the press secretary infamously insisted that President Trump’s inaugural crowd had been larger than President Obama’s, even with photographic evidence showing that the claim was untrue. The moment was lampooned by Melissa McCarthy in a widely praised “SNL” parody.
In the BBC interview, Spicer remembered the moment and admitted he could have done a better job.
“I set the dye on that day for a lot of what was to come. What I was trying to do, and clearly not well, was change the focus of the number of people attending it to the total audience watching it,” he said. “I did not do a very good job. That goes down as one of those days that I’d like a do-over. Nobody was happy with me that day”