Kellyanne Conway made the Sunday show rounds and was asked repeatedly about what happened Saturday afternoon, when Press Secretary Sean Spicer came to the briefing room to, as NBC’s Chuck Todd called it, “litigate a provable falsehood when it comes to a small and petty thing like inaugural crowd size.”
After Todd didn’t get an answer the first time, he pressed on, to which Conway responded: “If we’re going to keep referring to our press secretary in those type of terms, I think we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here.” Todd got heated as he asked a third time about Trump asking Spicer to make the statement: “Don’t be so overly dramatic about it Chuck,” Conway shot back. She also said Spicer had come with “alternative facts.”
“Alternative facts are not facts, they’re falsehoods,” Todd shot back.
Over on ABC, George Stephanopoulos, who celebrated 20 years at the network last week by spending half his Friday anchoring, asked Conway why the president was so concerned about the crowd size at his inauguration.
“We spent 11 hours on the air on Friday during the inauguration, barely talked about the crowd size, if we brought it up at all. We spent time talking to people in the crowds. The question is, why does the president choose to talk about that at the CIA? Why does he send his press secretary out to talk about it in his first White House briefing and say things that aren’t true?”
“The president supports his press secretary and his press operation,” Conway said. “And I think that our press secretary, Sean Spicer, was making the point that accountability has to go both ways,” echoing what Spicer said Saturday.
On CBS, John Dickerson called it a “question of proportion.” “Why didn’t [Spicer] talk about this: millions of Americans wondering, to find out what their healthcare system is going to be like?”
“Our press secretary will address Americans on a number of issues including the ones I just said on your show,” Conway said, adding, “It is disappointing to get into this argument about crowd[s].”