Liberal late-night host Jimmy Kimmel hosted former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on his September 13 Jimmy Kimmel Live show, where he grilled Spicer on his relationship with Trump and the media. As a comedian, Kimmel left the mockery for Trump, while he praised the press as untainted enemies of the White House. Most every question-- or really accusation from Kimmel, demanded Spicer defend the media against Trump’s unfair attacks against them.
At one point the talk show host even put Spicer on the spot, asking him to call the press “decent people” looking to tell “the truth.”
Early on in the interview, Kimmel asked Spicer to delve into his personal relationships with various members of the press:
JIMMY KIMMEL: A lot of these guys, these members of the press, were your friends, right?
SEAN SPICER: I think were, yeah.
KIMMEL: So this is Jonathan Karl from ABC news who was a friend of yours?
SPICER: I've known Jonathan for a long time.
KIMMEL: Okay, all right. Here's how you guys kind of got it going.
[Plays tape from first WH press conference]
JONATHAN KARL: Is it your intention to always tell the truth from that podium, and will you pledge never to knowingly say something that is not factual?
SPICER: It is. It's an honor to do this. And yes, I believe that we have to be honest with the American people. I think sometimes we can disagree with the facts.
After lightly mocking Spicer for his past statements, Kimmel outright blamed Spicer for his strained relationship he had with the White House press corps, as press secretary:
KIMMEL: Can we, though, disagree with the facts?
SPICER: Look, I think the point is that you can look at a set of -- an argument or set of facts and come out with one opinion, someone else can say, while the facts are the same here I come out with a different conclusion.
KIMMEL: I see.
SPICER:That's what makes our country great is that there's ways that you can look at economic models and say, we believe that growth rates will be higher or lower and that's --
KIMMEL: If I were to say to you, I'm sitting on a horse right now --
SPICER:You are not.
KIMMEL: Right, exactly! [ Cheers and applause ] So I want to go ask about Jonathan. When he's asking you this question are you like, ‘you son of a bitch, I've known you for 20 years!’
SPICER:There were a couple of other words. [ Laughter ] But that's the TV version. We're on cable. You know, yeah, there's times when you're thinking to yourself, you know -- if you want to ask about policy or a particular instance, but to get up there and question, you know, on day one my integrity, I think was not something that I anticipated.
KIMMEL: Yeah. Well, I'm sure. Although when you brought that crowd size thing out, it opened this terrible Pandora's box. You think that's what got you off to kind of a bad start with the press corps?
SPICER:I don't think it was -- it was probably not the best start.
Later on Kimmel brought up Spicer’s relationship with the media again. This time he was more direct, putting Spicer on the spot and asking him to defend the media as honorable people just looking for the truth:
KIMMEL: Again, we talked about your relationship. You have a longstanding relationship with members of the press.
SPICER:Yeah.
KIMMEL: Do you agree that the vast majority of -- I don't mean the vast majority, the majority of journalists are decent people who are looking to get the truth and to write the truth?
SPICER:I think probably the majority.
KIMMEL: Yeah.
As Spicer tried to bring balance to the conversation, Kimmel wasn’t done with his attacks against the White House and his defense of the media’s indisputable purity:
SPICER: There are a lot that have now -- I always like to say they'd rather be first than right. And I think that's unfortunate. Because it gives a bad name to those who actually do take the time to do it right.
KIMMEL: There is a lot of that. People want to just get the click.
SPICER: Right. There's a line between -- and this is where I think a lot of journalists have crossed a line which is they go on Twitter or another social media and start to perpetuate myths or make back and forth and say, well that's not a story, that's tweet --
KIMMEL: Wait a minute, journalists go on Twitter and perpetuate myths? How about the president?
[ Applause ]
SPICER: Well, yeah -- I think there's a lot of times where what I found frustrating was there were a lot of times when they were literally creating a story out of whole cloth that didn't exist. I think that's difficult, because if you're a viewer or a reader and you see something, you're trusting these individuals to give you what is the best -- the whole truth--
KIMMEL: Sure, yeah.
SPICER: As opposed to a one-sided way that's going to promote a view or a click.
KIMMEL: But the president -- it seems that what he calls fake news is really anything that criticizes him. And then he'll give validity to wacky news sources sometimes. Because they're complimentary. And do you think that is a dangerous thing to delegitimize the press for America?
Spicer went into further detail, defending President Trump and calling out the White House press corps in particular for not being willing to keep it’s own members accountable for reporting the truth at all times. “They've never once, during my tenure, at least to my recollection, ever called out someone who has crossed the line on a story,” he told Kimmel, who interrupted to cast doubt on Spicer’s statement:
SPICER: I think it's a two-way street. And when these guys in the press corps go after the president in ways that are unbecoming -- again, it's sort of like what your mom said, two wrongs don't make a right. I think sometimes when the press corps attacks the president, undermines him, calls into question his credibility from the outset, I think it creates a very poor relationship overall. And I think that there is some area that could deserve a reset. Hopefully I think Sarah's done a phenomenal job of really trying to take the tone down and get back.
KIMMEL: So when you say two wrongs, Donald Trump is wrong?
SPICER: No, I didn't say that. [ Laughter and applause ]
KIMMEL: You don't work there anymore, you don't have to worry about him, we can protect you here. I've got the best security guy in the world. [ Cheers and applause ]
SPICER: No, I just -- I believe that, look -- a free press is paramount to a democracy. And it's what makes our country great. That we do have the ability, like so many places on Earth don't have that ability to speak freely, to have a free press. But it is an awesome responsibility for those members of the press corps to have. And they need to understand that when they cross the line or when a member of the press corps crosses the line, they have a responsibility to help hold that in. And I've never seen a group of individuals who protect themselves like the press corps does. Especially the White House press corps. They've never once, during my tenure, at least to my recollection, ever called out someone who has crossed the line on a story. I think it undermines --
KIMMEL: Is that true? I mean...
SPICER: I rarely have seen any -- they always have an excuse for why that story, ‘oh, we were going to correct it and we checked with the sources and now’ -- and it's never -- there's never an admission of guilt. Once in a while you see the little correction, we erred in putting the period here or there. But I do believe that the healthier press corps that we have, the better democracy that we have.
Kimmel then complained that it was “terrible” for Trump to “lump” all the media together as fake news. Spicer agreed but said the press held a different standard for themselves than they did for everyone else:
KIMMEL: Lumping everyone together, though, as fake news, just seems terrible to me.
SPICER: Sure, but --
KIMMEL: You're a Catholic and I'm a Catholic as well. I'm offended when people lump all priests together as child abusers. I find that to be unfair to those who aren't.
SPICER: I agree. But -- As someone who's a conservative and a Republican, I spent 25 years in Washington, D.C. Being told, conservatives want this. Republicans are against this. So I agree.
But it's the press corps that also lumps all of us into the same bucket as well and says, conservatives don't care about this. The Republicans are racist. Those are -- if those statements are not right, then it's not right -- again, it's that whole idea of two wrongs don't make a right. The press corps wants to attack Republicans, attack conservatives, undermine our attempt to have a constructive dialogue. And I think it's a two-way street. So if we don't want to lump every journalist into the same thing, don't lump every Republican and every conservative into the same box.
Again, Kimmel argued with his guest that there was no bias against conservatives, just the press apparently. He then called Trump’s treatment of the liberal media “childish:”
KIMMEL: Okay. [Cheers and applause] I don't think everyone is. You've got Fox News is certainly not doing that. You consider them to be part of the press. I mean, it's-- it really is -- it seems almost like a childish way to interact with each other as two different groups.
SPICER: That's the thing, I think there's a time that we can start taking down the temperature and getting back to a more constructive and civil dialogue.
KIMMEL: You mean when Mike Pence takes over?
[laughter]
As the show ended, Kimmel joked with Spicer, asking him if he would write a “tell-all” memoir of his time in the White House. Spicer repeatedly told the talk show host that it wouldn’t be appropriate or right to betray the trust of the president, but Kimmel kept pressing, ending with this crass plea:
You have Trump by the balls right now. [ Light laughter ] If you write that book, if you hold on to writing that book, you could literally run this country from some kind of shadow organization at your house.
