Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
“Sean Spicer is a wonderful person who took tremendous abuse from the Fake News Media – but his future is bright,” President Donald Trump tweeted Friday night.
Trump’s social-media send-off for Spicer came hours after the White House press secretary announced his resignation, which came shortly after Anthony Scaramucci was brought on as Trump’s communications director.
Spicer’s six-month stint in the Trump administration was tumultuous. He often became a headline on his own, due to a number of combative, on-camera exchanges with White House reporters.
He was also mocked for reciting official White House statements that were demonstrably false, like his first official appearance in the White House press briefing room, in which he declared that the audience at Trump’s January 20 inauguration was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.”
Exchanges like those helped make Spicer a favorite target of late-night comedians and shows like “Saturday Night Live,” which routinely parodied Spicer’s behaviors.
While Trump has often railed against SNL’s portrayals of himself and his administration, Spicer said in a Fox News interview Friday night that he generally took those parodies in stride.
“Sometimes it can be funny, Some of the memes you have to crack up about. But sometimes it goes from funny to mean.”
Spicer took a parting shot at reporters during that Fox News interview, saying he became “increasingly disappointed in how so many members of the media here do their job, or rather don’t do their job.”
Spicer is expected to leave the White House in August.
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