Sean Spicer Says He ‘Felt Bad’ for Katie Zacharia Over First Briefing

At least Katie Zacharia didn’t have to talk about crowd sizes.

Sean Spicer — who became infamous during his turn as White House press secretary in 2017 for falsely claiming President Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration crowds were the “largest” ever — said he has a bit of sympathy for the latest to hold the job.

Speaking Wednesday on The Huddle podcast with former Democratic strategist Dan Turrentine, Spicer spoke about how tough the job behind the press room podium is in wake of Zacharia’s much criticized debut.

“She was a little nervous,” Turrentine said, adding, “I felt bad for her watching that in real time.”

Spicer then spoke about how intense and intrusive the job of White House press secretary can be, before suggesting Zacharia was tossed into the fire with little prep.

“You have no idea what it’s, you’re about to get hit in the face in a way that you never have. There’s a level of scrutiny into your personal background, every post that you’ve made, your family, your business records, your family records, your, you know, all that stuff.

“I don’t think that people fully appreciate that the media and the left are going through and scrutinizing you and creating a level of intensity that people I had no idea and and I’ve tried to warn people, you cannot prepare yourself for that,” he added.

“The idea of suddenly not having a degree of privacy not being able to walk down a street not being able to to you know you have to be very careful about your personal information you know speaking of cognney but also your your family and protecting them. I think it’s easy to say, ‘Well, I’ve been on Fox and I’ve been on TV and blah blah blah.’ Not even close.”

He went on to add Zacharia probably didn’t have enough time to properly prep before the briefing, in which she took just three questions from Trump-friendly outlets and walked out after 14 minutes.

“I questioned the timing yesterday for a very good reason, which is you think about just coming out of the bat. Ukraine, Kimberly Guilfoyle, blah blah. I mean, all this stuff, it’s you got to know everything. Russia, Iran, the economy, legislative priorities, the midterms. You cannot cram for that that soon.

“And I you know, to your point, I felt bad because you’re setting someone up for failure by trying to do that that quick.”

Jason Cohen contributed to this report. 

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!