Sean Spicer To Karoline Levitt: Why Does Trump Grant Interviews To ABC News And The Atlantic?

At a press briefing, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer questioned Karoline Leavitt about President Trump's interviews.

Transcript

00:00I figured I'd best address to you.

00:02You've done a phenomenal job opening up the briefing room, bringing in new voices.

00:06The president's commitment during the campaign to do long-form podcasts was, I think, extremely

00:11helpful to this new media environment that we live in.

00:15But a lot of conservatives will ask me, why does he sit down with people like Terry Moran

00:19of ABC or Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic?

00:22What is the rationale behind that, rewarding people who have very vehemently expressed

00:28disdain for him personally?

00:30Because the president is unafraid, and he is inspired by competition, and he likes to

00:37talk to people face-to-face.

00:38And I think that's one of his best attributes and qualities.

00:41We live in an incredibly divisive country, unfortunately, that has been really the result and consequence,

00:48frankly, of the fake news and the hoaxes and lies they have driven at this president for

00:53the better part of the last decade now.

00:55But the fact that we still have a president who has been a victim of these hoaxes, these

01:01lies, these smears by so many legacy media outlets and reporters, yet he's still willing

01:05to sit down with them, look them in the eye, look them face-to-face, and take them to task

01:10and share the truth with them and his perspective, I think is what the American people deserve in

01:15a president. And it's certainly a stark contrast to what we had in the previous administration,

01:20a president who was hiding, who actually used this beautiful South Court auditorium,

01:25which we're happy to be in today.

01:26But he used this like it was a fake Oval Office, weirdly, oddly.

01:31He was missing in action.

01:33He called lids at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

01:35For those who don't know, a lid is when we tell the press to go home for the night.

01:39And he was doing that midday.

01:41That is not acceptable around here, I will tell you.

01:43We're working very early through the very late hours of the night.

01:47And the president's willing to talk to anyone, not just journalists who have really been

01:53posing as journalists but are actually left-wing activists, but also if you look at our adversaries

01:58and our competition abroad on a foreign policy scale, you know well in the first term he went

02:03to North Korea. He talked to Putin directly. He talked to President Xi directly. The president

02:08believes in direct diplomacy, whether it is our adversaries and competitors around the world

02:13or left-wing activists like...