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It’s hard to imagine two White House press secretaries presenting a more striking contrast during their first time facing reporters than Sean Spicer and Jen Psaki.
Spicer was already spitting mad after journalists challenged Donald Trump’s lie that the turnout for his inauguration was the biggest ever. Little did anyone know that such outrageously fallacious boasts and furious defenses by angry press secretaries would become the norm in the Trump administration.
“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe,” Spicer angrily declared at the time.
Psaki, on the other hand, was pleasant and smiling on Wednesday, and delivered a briefing free of lies and insults. She also acknowledged that she and the press will see things differently at times.
“That’s okay,” Psaki said. “That’s part of our democracy.”
As one Twitter critic noted, the new “normal” felt like a “warm hug.”
Spicer didn’t come off well in a contrasting video created by The Recount — and HuffPost (above).
Spicer, true to form, lashed out after Psaki’s debut, saying the press was unfair to him when he was press secretary and that’s why he behaved the way he did. He complained that reporters only lobbed softball questions at Psaki, then posted a Fox News story backing him up. The article didn’t point out that Spicer had to answer for Trump lying right out of the gate.
Spicer also hammered Psaki’s response to a question about why President Joe Biden didn’t wear a mask during the inauguration. She said Biden was “celebrating an historic day,” that other COVID precautions were taken and added: “I don’t know that I have more for you.”
Critics on Twitter weren’t buying Spicer’s excuses or his whining about a double standard. Former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany got zapped, too:
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