For the latest NewsBusters Podcast, we talked to Sean Spicer — former White House press secretary, former host of Spicer & Co. on Newsmax, and author of books like Radical Nation: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s Dangerous Plan for America and The Briefing: Politics, Press, and the President. Spicer joined the Trump campaign and administration after a stint running communications for the Republican National Committee.
Managing editor Curtis Houck — who monitors the correspondents in the White House briefings — co-hosted. We first discussed House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) calling a long press conference on Wednesday morning alleging the Biden family enriched themselves through influence peddling in China, Ukraine, and even Romania. The non-conservative networks skipped any live coverage. That was not their approach when the House Democrats organized a one-sided January 6 Committee. All of their hearings were aired live and nearly complete. Fox News was harshly criticized for not offering live coverage to their prime-time hearings.
From there, we discussed Tucker Carlson’s announcement that he would bring his show to Twitter. Spicer said he thinks cable news is a dying business. Naturally, we asked Spicer about the vast difference between White House briefing behavior under Republican presidents versus Democrat presidents, between a daily shark attack and a daily friend zone.
We wrapped up by guessing CNN’s town hall on Wednesday night with Donald Trump was going to be hostile, because CNN viewers expected it to be hostile. So why would he choose to do it? In a new video, Spicer also has some thoughts that the Republicans no longer have any need to take Republican primary presidential debates to the liberal networks when there are so many television and streaming options.
Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.