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Sean Spicer Returns to Try to Repair His Credibility. Fails.

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‘At No Time Did I Say Things That Were Demonstrably False Intentionally’ Spicer Claims

Sean Spicer‘s short tenure as White House Press Secretary began with questionably false statements about the size of the crowd one day earlier at Donald Trump’s inauguration. Spicer infamously barked at reporters, “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.”

In an exceptionally lengthy investigation at the time USA Today concluded, “Trump and Spicer argued that the media misrepresented the size of the crowd at the inauguration, and we don’t find any evidence of that. To the contrary, it was Trump and Spicer who provided false information to feed a false narrative about crowd size.”

The Atlantic reported, “Trump’s Press Secretary Falsely Claims: ‘Largest Audience Ever to Witness an Inauguration, Period’,” and added, “In his first official White House briefing, Sean Spicer blasted journalists for ‘deliberately false reporting,’ and made categorical claims about crowd-size at odds with the available evidence.”

Almost a full year later and six months after ending his stint as press secretary, Spicer has returned, trying to salvage his credibility and reputation.

In an interview with S.E. Cupp on HLN Thursday afternoon, he failed. Miserably.

Here’s how Spicer defended his first-ever press briefing as Trump’s press secretary: By claiming Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist in previous administrations (they did,) and saying they “focused too much on the pictures” of the inauguration. And when confronted with having claimed he said Trump had the most Electoral College votes since Reagan, he dodged.

It was an embarrassing performance.

But it gets worse.

Here’s the opening segment of his interview:

“Did you lie on behalf of the President?” S.E. Cupp asked.

“No,” Spicer answered definitively.

Cupp sounded like she winced.

“You said a number of demonstrably proven false things, inaccurate things, while you were press secretary,” she accused. “Can you admit you said some things that were not true?”

In short, Spicer could not admit it.

“At no time did I say things that were demonstrably false intentionally.”

Face checkers (see above) disagree.

He blamed “an intensity, a scrutiny that has never been seen before in a White House.”

That’s because from day one Trump lied. And his team lied. Almost everyone associated with the Trump campaign, it seemed, lied. So of course the press scrutinized everything, or tried to. That’s their job, and Spicer knows that.

Spicer also claimed his job is to provide information the president wants communicated. But – and this is a devastatingly cancerous problem with the Trump administration, then and now: rarely does any public facing official in the Trump administration demonstrate they are aware they responsible to the public. Answering questions from reporters, and following up with answers when they don’t have them, appears to be unimportant. From Trump on down, ignoring questions or dodging them looks like “job one.”

His response makes that even clearer.

Spicer admitted he “screwed up,” but he just couldn’t admit the damage he did to the public’s trust in the White House – any White House. 

Whatever party takes over the White House after Trump, the damage, the destroyed trust Spicer began, will take years to fix.

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Melania Trump Hails Herself as a ‘Visionary’ at Women’s History Month Event

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First Lady Melania Trump, in remarks at a White House Women’s History Month celebration, hailed herself as a “visionary” as she gave advice to guests.

“As a visionary, I know success is not born overnight, but rather takes shape after long, and sometimes challenging process,” the First Lady said. She also described herself as “a mother, humanitarian, philanthropist, and entrepreneur.”

Mrs. Trump also mentioned her new film, “Melania,” saying that she “shaped its creative direction, served as a producer, managed post production and activated the marketing campaign.”

Noting that “curiosity is a core value” that keeps her “ahead of the curve,” she said that her “unrestricted mindset” has led her to “build across very different sectors,” including, “fashion, digital assets, publishing, accessories, skincare, commercial television, and of course, filmmaking.”

Sharing advice and personal experience, Mrs. Trump told the audience, “Often alone at the top, I follow my passion. Listen to my instincts, and always maintain a laser focus.”

She also declared that the “strength of America is closely tied to the role women play in shaping their children’s character, education, and morals. The values cultivated within our communities shape the voice and vision of our next generation.”

“A woman’s influence strengthens our democracy, capital markets, and time-tested business institutions,” she said. “Across the country today, women are finding unique ways to balance career, ambition, and family.”

Image via Reuters 

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‘Seems to Be No Plan’ Expert Says on Trump Securing Iran’s Nuclear Material to End War

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President Donald Trump says he is bombing Iran so it “does not obtain a nuclear weapon,” but a veteran nuclear policy expert is blasting his war strategy, warning there appears to be no plan to secure Iran’s nuclear stockpile — a failure that could leave the U.S. in the “worst of all worlds” while Iran is “holding all the nuclear cards.”

“This may be the worst planned war in history,” Joe Cirincione told Mother Jones. “I see no sign that they knew what they were doing. It seemed to be just literally bomb, bomb, bomb. There didn’t seem to be a plan for how you were going to get at that particular material. If there is one, it hasn’t emerged.”

He warns, “there seems to be no plan for how to end this war.”

“Almost all wars end by some sort of negotiation,” Cirincione says. “If you project forward several weeks, it’s going to have to end. Usually there’s some sort of arrangement that’s made to end a war.”

But, he says, President Trump “seems to be flying by the seat of his pants and making this up as it goes along,” so “we just don’t know.”

READ MORE: Trump Has ‘No Idea’ If Iran War Will Win Him Nobel Peace Prize

Cirincione warns that “it’s possible that Trump has put us into the worst of all possible worlds. He’s made it impossible for us to have a negotiated solution to this. And we can’t use any military means to solve the problem. So we’re left in this worst of all worlds, which is Iran is holding all the nuclear cards at the end of this war.”

Mother Jones reports that “with his war in Iran, Trump has created a big, possibly catastrophic problem: A half-ton of highly enriched uranium, which can be made bomb-ready, is somewhere…out there—available for use by Iran’s new regime or perhaps not fully secured and susceptible to theft or expropriation.”

So, what are the options?

“The United States either has to conduct some high-risk military maneuver where we would land people from the 82nd Airborne or an Israeli commando unit into the site at Isfahan and try to find the uranium, go down hundreds of meters underground, retrieve the uranium and pull it out or perhaps destroy it on site,” says Cirincione. He calls it “a high risk proposition.”

“What you’re left with is really the only other solution where we started: a negotiated deal.”

President Barack Obama signed one with Iran. Trump tore it up during his first term.

With a negotiated deal, “You have to get Iran’s agreement to secure that material, declare it, allow inspectors, and then either secure it under inspection or downblend it—the process in reverse, bring it down to a 3-percent or 4-percent level. That’s the only two solutions to this problem.”

READ MORE: ‘Trying to Look Cool’: Patel Roasted for Inviting UFC Stars to Train FBI Agents

 

Image via Reuters 

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Trump Has ‘No Idea’ If Iran War Will Win Him Nobel Peace Prize

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President Donald Trump says not only does he not know if his war against Iran will help win him the Nobel Peace Prize, he also doesn’t care, and doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Trump claimed to have ‘no idea’ if Operation Epic Fury will ‘get him over the finish line’ with committee members,'” the Washington Examiner reported on Thursday, after a telephone call with the president.

“I don’t know,” Trump told the Washington Examiner. “I’m not interested in it.”

“No, I don’t talk about the Nobel Prize,” Trump also said, when asked if the topic came up in his recent talks with foreign leaders.

The Examiner’s Christian Datoc, who spoke to the president, reported via video that Trump “appears to be having a massive about-face about winning the Nobel Peace Prize amid his war with Iran.”

“He told me over the phone that he’s not sure if he’s deserving of this award anymore,” Datoc added. “This is a massive change in the president’s rhetoric from really anything he’s said over the past thirteen months.”

READ MORE: ‘Trying to Look Cool’: Patel Roasted for Inviting UFC Stars to Train FBI Agents

 

Image via Reuters 

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