The Briefing

by Sean Spicer

  Defense Secretary Mattis joined us by video.

  The president had ordered a secret air strike earlier in the day—fifty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles against Syria’s Shayrat Airbase—and now we were gathered to review footage of the strike. Secretary Mattis provided a preliminary assessment of the mission and a timeline for when we would know more.

  The president led the discussion with Secretary Mattis. Early indications were that the raid had been a tremendous success, destroying perhaps twenty Syrian aircraft, inflicting severe damage to hangars and smashing military support facilities—everything from supply depots to air defenses.

  We were focused on Syria, but there was other big news developing. That same day, we received word that the U.S. Senate had confirmed Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee for the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. The president beamed at the news of the confirmation. He had promised to appoint a conservative to fill the “Scalia seat” on the court, and he had succeeded.

  That evening, the president dined with President Xi. At the end of dinner, over chocolate cake, the president informed the Chinese president of the strikes.

  I’ve had many roles as a communication director or press secretary in my career, and I have helped countless candidates, party officials, and elected officials undergo media training.

  Media training isn’t as formal as it sounds. It’s basically teaching people how to prepare for an interview, especially on camera. The trainee sits in a chair in front of a camera while a staffer asks practice questions. And there are some basic rules. If you’re preparing for an in-studio interview, you look at the interviewer, not the camera; if your interview is in a remote studio, you look directly at the camera. Don’t move your hands too much. Don’t repeat a question. Don’t validate a premise with which you disagree. And the number one rule I gave every Republican was don’t ever, ever talk about rape or compare anything or anyone to Hitler or the Holocaust.

  Ever.

  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve repeated these rules to everyone from candidates to state party chairmen. But on April 11, 2017, I violated my own number one rule, setting off another controversy from the White House podium.

  Earlier, I had been part of a small, impromptu briefing in the dining room off the Oval Office where Secretary Mattis had explained to the president the degree of the current atrocities committed by Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad. He noted that not even Adolf Hitler had dared to use chemical weapons on the battlefield (note the word “battlefield”). I left the meeting wanting to make sure that the horror of Assad’s actions was fully communicated. I wanted everyone to understand just how evil Assad is and why the president had acted so swiftly.

  When I went into the briefing room to begin the daily briefing, echoes of Mattis’s words were still with me.

  The briefing started with a reflection on a tragic shooting in San Bernardino, California, and a readout of a meeting the president had had with private sector CEOs on modernizing the government. Then I opened up the briefing for questions. Eleven of the first fifteen questions focused on Syria. The video showing the pain and suffering of the Syrian people that had gone viral was clearly on the minds of the reporters. I was doing well, talking about the president’s reaction and concern. But then came the sixteenth question.

  “The alliance between Russia and Syria is a strong one; it goes back decades. President Putin has supplied personnel. He’s supplied military equipment to the Assad government. What makes you think that at this point he’s going to pull back in his support for President Assad and for the Syrian government right now?”

  I thought to myself, “I got this.” I had been in a groove expressing the president’s concern and Assad’s horrific actions. But instead of staying on the messages that had been working just fine, I tried to turn it up a notch:

  I think a couple things. You look—we didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II. You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons. So, you have to, if you’re Russia, ask yourself is this a country that you and a regime that you want to align yourself with? You have previously signed on to international agreements rightfully acknowledging that the use of chemical weapons should be out of bounds by every country. To not stand up to not only Assad, but your own word, should be troubling.

  Russia put their name on the line. So, it’s not a question of how long that alliance has lasted, but at what point do they recognize that they are now getting on the wrong side of history in a really bad way really quickly.

  And again, look at the countries that are standing with them: Iran, Syria, North Korea. This is not a team you want to be on. And I think that Russia has to recognize that while they may have had an alliance with them, that the lines that have been crossed are one that no country should ever want to see another country cross.

  That was it—like the previous eleven questions on the subject, I thought I had sufficiently described the outrage we had toward both Assad and Russia. The questions in the briefing room are asked at the speed of light. I would answer one question while anticipating the next one. In my mind, I thought I had answered the question, but clearly what had come out of my mouth was not the full explanation that I had envisioned saying. I kept going, oblivious to the damage I had done.

  The next question was about the president’s tax returns. Then came a question about the Easter Egg Roll. My corny response about it being “egg-cellent” evoked laughter from the briefing room. That was followed by a question on the White House vistor logs. After that, more questions focused on Syria and North Korea, and a question was asked about taxes and infrastructure. At this point, I thought I was doing great. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary because of the pace and intensity of the briefings.

  Then I called on ABC News’s Cecilia Vega.

  “Sean, thanks. I just want to give you an opportunity to clarify something you said that seems to be gaining some traction right now.”

  What now?

  Then she started reading from her phone.

  “ ‘Hitler didn’t even sink to the level of using chemical weapons.’ What did you mean by that?”

  What? Frantically, I’m thinking, “What did I do?”

  I responded, “I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no—he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing, I mean, there was clearly—I understand your point, thank you.”

  Cecilia then tried to throw me lifeline number two, which I failed to grab.

  She said, “I’m just getting—” but I cut her off and stepped in it deeper and deeper.

  “Thank you, I appreciate that,” I said. “There was not—he brought them into the Holocaust center, I understand that. But I’m saying in the way that Assad used them, where he went into towns, dropped them down to innocent—into the middle of towns. It was brought—so the use of it—I appreciate the clarification there. That was not the intent.”

  What had I done. Holocaust centers?

  And I didn’t realize until later that I had inadvertently omitted General Mattis’s important phrase “on the battlefield.”

  Hitler, of course, had used chemical weapons to murder Jews and other victims during the Holocaust.

  I read the body language of not only the reporters but also my own staffers along the side of the room. I was beginning to realize I had misspoken badly.

  The instincts that kick in behind that podium are similar, I imagine, to those of a quarterback facing a blitz—just get rid of the ball and don’t get knocked down. But after a bad play, a quarterback can call a time out and get his thoughts together and confer with his team. A press secretary behind the podium doesn’t have any time outs to call.

  In the heat of the moment, I still hadn’t realized what I had said wrong. I was so fully focused on condemning Assad that I failed to see how badly I had stumbled by omitting that phrase, “on the battlefield.”

  By this point, I was feeling flustered, still n
ot fully understanding what had just happened. My remarks were not quite right, and I had the alarming sense that I was digging myself into a deeper hole with each word.

  This may have been the lowest moment I had in the White House. I alone had fumbled; no one else had made me do it.

  The irony is that this was a question that I had been waiting for, that I had been prepared to answer. And I had been given two chances to clarify the record.

  After the briefing, I went to my staff. I knew it was bad, but I still asked, how deep am I? Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Natalie Strom, and Raj Shah gave me a look that said, “Deeper than the Titanic.” Then I noticed the calendar on my computer. It read, “First day of Passover.”

  Reince came into my office.

  “Remember the first thing you taught me in media training?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said sheepishly. Never compare anyone to Hitler.

  I made a mistake, a big one, and I needed to say so.

  I went to the Oval Office to see the president.

  “Mr. President, I need you to know that I just stepped in it really badly, and I screwed up.”

  “I saw it. But I know what you meant, Sean. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Thank you, sir, but I think I’ve embarrassed you and the administration and insulted the Jewish people. I need to make it right.”

  “Look, Sean, you screwed up, but I know what you meant. You clearly didn’t mean . . .” He trailed off. When he spoke again, his tone was gentle. At a moment when I felt my worst, he tried to reassure me and was gracious, caring, and forgiving. Finally, he said, “Do what you think is right.”

  I felt like I had a fever that was going to get worse before it broke. And despite the president’s support, I was again wondering if this was my last day at the White House.

  I asked Natalie, who is Jewish, how the story was playing. Natalie is as loyal as they come, but she had to confess it was getting much worse. Many people echoed the president, telling me they “knew what I meant,” but millions of other people did not and were deeply offended.

  In this moment, I knew I had three choices: one, do nothing and hope it blew over; two, look for a friendly interviewer or reporter and try to put my spin on the story; or three, find the most challenging interviewer I could, own the mistake, and ask for forgiveness. I chose number three.

  I asked my team to check which news shows I could get on ASAP. They came back with several options, including appearing on CNN with Wolf Blitzer at 5:00 p.m. I knew from the outset that it wouldn’t be an easy interview. Wolf always asks tough questions. And he is the son of two Holocaust survivors.

  “I was obviously trying to make a point about the heinous acts that Assad had made against his own people last week, using chemical weapons and gas,” I told Wolf. “Frankly, I mistakenly used an inappropriate and insensitive reference to the Holocaust, for which, frankly, there is no comparison. And for that I apologize.”

  Many public apologies aren’t really apologies at all. To say, “I am sorry to those who took offense at my comments,” isn’t an apology. Either you are sorry or you aren’t. I wanted to make it clear that I was sorry—that I had said something I hadn’t meant to say and truly regretted it.

  Wolf kept boring down on me. Wasn’t I aware that in addition to the Jews, others had been victims of Hitler’s poison-gas chambers?

  Of course, I told him.

  “Have you spoken to President Trump about your blunder today?” Wolf asked.

  “Obviously, it was my blunder,” I said.1

  To think that I had offended people—especially those whose families had been victims of the Holocaust—twisted my stomach in a way I had never felt before and hope to never feel again. I had created this mess. I had embarrassed myself, my team, and the president.

  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, other Democrats, and even a Republican congressman from Colorado were soon calling for my resignation.

  That evening, I was as down as I ever was. Some people can shrug off bad moments, but I have a hard time forgiving myself when I make a mistake, especially when I hurt others. It grates on me. Fortunately, Rebecca and the kids were waiting for me at home, and that made all the difference.

  Marlin Fitzwater, who had served in both the Reagan and the George H. W. Bush communications shops, wrote me early in my days at the White House with a bit of sage advice: “You don’t have to explain what you don’t say.” His words would have served me well on that day.

  A few days later, the job became a little more cheerful. I was in the middle of a briefing when the New England Patriots came to the White House to meet the president in celebration of that big, surprising Super Bowl win in Houston, Texas.

  Andrew Giuliani, who worked in the Office of Public Liaison, was coordinating the team’s visit and let them know the briefing was happening. We were well into the briefing when all of a sudden, Rob Gronkowski, the team’s tight end and one of its biggest stars, opened a door leading into the briefing room and popped in.

  “Need any help here?” he asked.

  The briefing room erupted in laughter. I chuckled, paused to process what had just happened, and responded, “I got it. Thanks, man.”

  It was a much-needed laugh by everyone in that briefing room.

  Later that day, some of the most popular Patriots came to my office to talk with my kids and meet my mother, brother, and sister. As a young boy, I had attended one game with my dad in the old Foxboro Stadium and sat on metal benches. They were most likely up in the “nosebleed” section. Now, here I was with the team in my office.

  My kids had brought a “few” of their favorite Patriots items in hopes of getting them signed, including their team helmets and kid-sized Gronkowski jerseys. My daughter brought the pink Gronk jersey a friend had given her for her sixth birthday. The kids spread the items perfectly across my desk with black Sharpies strategically positioned close by. When the players arrived at my office, I asked Gronk if he would sign a few things for my kids, and he graciously responded by pulling up a chair and reaching for a Sharpie. As he sat down at my desk, he eyed a box of leftover chicken tenders my kids had left on a nearby table. He asked the kids, “Anyone know where I could get a chicken tender around here?” Right on cue, my son grabbed a chicken tender and handed it to Gronkowski. He devoured it and went on to sign every item sitting on my desk.

  Later that day, my family had the privilege of attending a ceremony on the South Lawn that honored the Patriots’ Super Bowl win. After the event, the president invited the entire team into the residence. I got a message that I had been called to the residence, too. Robert and Jonathan Kraft, the owners of the Patriots franchise, and head coach Bill Belichick wanted to see me before they departed from the White House. After finishing their visit in the presidential family’s private quarters, they walked down the Grand Staircase to the State Floor with the team in tow. My family and I were standing in the Grand Foyer, at the base of the staircase, when we saw the president, Bob Kraft, and coach Belichick arrive. The coach had a Patriots helmet in his hand. He walked up to me and said, “We brought this for you. For what you deal with every day, you’ve earned this.”

  As my family departed the residence and headed back to the West Wing, my mother leaned over to me and said, “You know who would have loved this day?” Yes, we were thinking the same thing: my dad would have loved it. His family, the Patriots, the White House—what a combination. As he was getting ready to leave this earth, my dad asked me to take care of my mom. I remembered that—the last conversation I ever had with my father. Somehow, I knew he had been with us, sharing in the excitement of that special day.

  April 27 was the annual Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. We had identified that date as an opportunity to invite the children of the press corps to join their parents at work and go behind the scenes at the White House. We thought it would be a way to strengthen relationships with members of the media. Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters spearheaded a fantasti
c event complete with commemorative media credentials for the children, a tour of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, meetings with members of the administration, and a mock press briefing in which the kids could ask their own probing questions. Many of the children came well-prepared with substantive policy questions. They sat in the briefing room’s blue chairs, and I stood at the podium providing answers. We had a lighthearted, fun exchange.

  In the early afternoon, we took the children into the Rose Garden where the president and vice president greeted them. President Trump and Vice President Pence posed for pictures with the children and signed their media credentials.

  Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished. In the middle of this children’s event, the ABC News team whipped out a camera and took advantage of the situation, asking the president a series of questions.

  When word got out that ABC had used the children’s event to interview the president, I was suddenly on the wrong side of every other reporter. Why had I allowed ABC to have access that no other media outlet had? How could ABC get something they didn’t have? Other outlets whose correspondents did not have children attending the event said it wasn’t fair to them. Meanwhile, the president asked how this could have happened. I tried to explain to both the president and members of the press corps that it wasn’t supposed to have happened; ABC’s action had violated the spirit of what was supposed to be a friendly, off-the-record event, focused on the kids.

  After the fact, ABC News tracked down Lindsay to ask for permission retroactively, but the damage had been done. Later, I called Jonathan Greenberger, ABC’s Washington bureau chief, for an explanation. He offered no apologies and expressed no regret.

  What had been meant as an olive branch to the press corps had been trampled on by ABC—and yet not a single person in the press corps or the White House Correspondents’ Association criticized the network for its action.