Sean Spicer has served as White House Press Secretary and the (formal) Trump administration spokesperson for under six months, during which time become the most hated person to ever hold the position. He's been a punching bag for late-night hosts and likened to a circus master on SNL, his interactions with reporters have become memes, and this week he's even getting grief about his weight from Trump adviser Steve Bannon amid reports that he's being removed from the podium.
As a former GOP press secretary who has served multiple congressmen on Capitol Hill, I think the American people—like this administration—are taking Spicer for granted. He's accomplished more than many care to appreciate under impossible circumstances. His strategies at the top were influencing mine daily, and I listened to him lead election conference calls or speak to rooms of communicators as Republican National Committee communications director. I can vouch for his positive and respectful reasoning. Agree or not with Republican initiatives— his intent was always to earn media on sound policy, not spin.
A senior Senate GOP press staffer who's had significantly more face time with Spicer insisted, "Some operatives in town jump race to race for money or visibility. (Spicer) does what's best for the party. He wakes up every morning and goes to bed at night thinking about how to advance the best policies for the American people."
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Like the one I took in Congress, Spicer's oath of office extends across the entire executive branch, not just to President Donald Trump, and requires objectivity. It's only once you appreciate those constraints that you can judge his performance fairly.
Spicer's actions aren't all defendable, obviously, like his cringe-inducing Holocaust flub and selective bans of reputable news outlets. His blatant lies about Trump's inauguration crowd size are also disappointing, but can (charitably) be chalked up to needing to win trust with Trump.
But it's often forgotten that Spicer's been one of DC's most respected political media insiders for years. His media relationships match his experience, and he almost certainly doesn't buy into the Trumpian categorization of "fake news" (especially the New York Times and CNN). Not to mention, he spent a good bit of 2016 trying to derail Trump's bid for the GOP presidential nomination (as did White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus).
Like CNN anchor Jake Tapper, I was perplexed by Spicer's transformation from cordial GOP advocate to what can seem like temperamental bulldog chained to a podium. Political strategists always make the most with the hand they're dealt, though, and I've come around to sympathizing with him. Spicer's hand is a president with a scandal-generating personality disorder who insults constituents and embraces conspiracy, but he's playing it expertly.
All political spokespeople have had to consider whether they could advocate for someone they don't see eye-to-eye with. If you can't, you ask yourself what greater good could still come of it. I've been there, and it's a tricky place to be. Everyone has their line on what they're willing to say, and what sort of scandals they'd be willing to run damage control for.
Once the decision is made, though, you've hitched yourself to the proverbial wagon. You hold your line, but everything outside of that is the democratic process. As one high-ranking press staffer put it often, "I'm a press secretary, I haven't had an opinion in years."
So, the question isn't whether Spicer has been a good or bad press secretary. It's that, given the administration's incoherence, how could anyone do this job under Trump?
You can't, but changing the format of press briefings is a smart start, a necessity driven by the president's shortcomings. Under Spicer they've been less frequent, shorter, more likely to be off-camera, and employ a chain of segments intended to maximize positive messaging at the start and reduce questions toward the end.
Limiting transparency under Trump is the lesser evil, from Spicer's perspective. The alternative is to state administration positions that would validate Infowars-level falsities and demonstrate further disregard for truth.
What often gets lost amid the talking heads' critiques is that Spicer has distanced himself as much as possible from Trump's crazier lies. As a spokesperson, anytime you aren't standing by your boss's claim, you're essentially throwing them to the media dogs. I've had to use this technique a handful of trying times, but Spicer may do this more frequently than any spokesperson. For instance, this is how he responded to a question about Trumps unfounded illegal voters back in January:
The President does believe that. He has stated that before. I think he's stated his concerns of voter fraud, and—and people voting illegally during the campaign, and he continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence that people have presented to him.
This sort of coy statement has been lampooned over and over, but it's a careful play. Spicer isn't lending his personal or bureaucratic authority to Trump's "beliefs"—it's the only thing he can do to mitigate damage without patronizing agency researchers.
This month, Spicer gave a similarly removed response about brash comments Trump made about former FBI Director James Comey's raising obstruction of justice concerns while under oath before the Senate:
The President has been clear, in the Rose Garden, that he believes that the sooner we can get this dealt with (the better)… that there's been no collusion, he wants this to get investigated as soon as possible and be done with it.
When pressed harder later in the briefing, Spicer neutrally added: "I know exactly what he said on Friday in the Rose Garden is exactly what he believes."
To give you a sense of what Spicer has to work with, this what Trump "clearly" said:
No collusion. No obstruction. He's a leaker. But we want to get back to running our great country: jobs; trade deficits: we want them to disappear fast; North Korea: big problem; Middle East, a big problem. So, that's what I'm focused on. That's what I have been focused on, but yesterday showed no collusion; no obstruction, we are doing really well. that was an excuse by the Democrats who lost an election that some people think they shouldn't have lost, because it's almost impossible for the Democrats to lose the Electoral College, as you know. You have to run up the whole East Coast and you have to win everything as a Republican and that's just what we did. So it was just an excuse, but we were very very happy and, frankly, James Comey confirmed a lot of what I said, and some of the things that he said just weren't true. Thank you very much."
When asked to defend the indefensible, what would you do? Spicer likely knows he is being ridiculed and risks being shamed by future historians by offering these non-answers and refusing to follow Trump all the way down the rabbit hole—it's a small sacrifice coming from a man who has dedicated his life and career to what he believes is right for the country. (Spicer's replacement may lack that sense of shame, and last longer in the role as a result.)
I'm not asking you to change your mind about "Spicey." But for now, consider that he knowingly and willingly dragged his own name through the mud in attempting to preserve the White House press secretary office's dignity. If that effort at institutional integrity ultimately fails, don't blame him—blame his boss.
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