No one at Fox news has been "defending," whatever that means, Spicer's presser. They were all taken back too. The closest to defending is that a few of their pundits, such as Eric Bolling on The Five, were saying this isn't your father's Press Office and Trump will obviously hold the media accountable on everything to his supporters as the media holds him accountable.
Did you actually watch it? I saw it live and he never said there were more people in DC for Trump's inauguration. He stated, that there is no way to officially tell because the Park Service hasn't released numbers and that pictures of the mall aren't a reliable gage because security measures are higher then 2009.
He did cite facts of what are known, Metro ridership numbers, the capacity of crowd sections which were full, and television viewership. His claim that this was the most watched inauguration is based on television viewership. IIRC he said "across the world," when he made that claim. Not that I give a sh1t, but every fact Spicer gave had 3x more journalistic integrity than a no-context 2009/2017 split shot of the 300m in front of the Capitol which every station including Fox were running.
What do I think of all of this? Of course I think it's dumb. It was an ego statement. There was really no point to it. Trump could have had Spicer cover this on Monday. But here's the thing. I didn't engineer one of the most historic political campaigns in history. I don't think you appreciate how loathed the media is in this country. Take a guess and then multiply it times 2...and then add 1. That's how bad. So when the media will accuse Trump of being a closet racist by removing MLK's bust from the Oval Office, his ego will not take it. And I bet a lot of other people's too. That's the definition of Fake News, which I thought we all wanted to condem. Would you wait 3 days to correct a reporter who called you a racist? And while I thought it was dumb for Spicer to get up there, I simultaneously liked that Trump and Spicer stood up for themselves.
Newflash...Trump has a big ego. If you didn't like Trump, whatever Spicer does won't endear him to you. So he's not losing anything there. Trumpers will eat it up. And for those who reluctantly voted for him, you're not going to care as long as he delivers on his policy promises. And don't forget the media as a punching bag is hardly a losing strategy
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Last edited: Jan 23, 2017