Trump reportedly won’t fire Sean Spicer because he ‘gets great ratings’
Donald Trump isn't going to let go of Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, despite the fact that Spicer has made multiple public mistakes.
Donald Trump isn’t going to let go of Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, despite the fact that Spicer has made multiple public mistakes.
The reason? Television ratings.
“I’m not firing Sean Spicer,” the Washington Post reported Trump as saying during a White House lunch in March. “That guy gets great ratings. Everyone tunes in.”
That much is true: Spicer has attracted about 4.3 million viewers, outstripping even soap operas like “The Bold and the Beautiful” and ABC’s “General Hospital.”
However, the comments made by the president seem to have been made before April 11, when Spicer stunned the nation with the horrible gaffe of saying that “someone as despicable as Hitler … didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons” in comparing Assad in Syria to Hitler to justify the missile strikes against the war-torn nation.
The Washington Post reported that Trump’s obsession with ratings has spilled over into his policymaking, with lawmakers and foreign visitors alike scheduling television appointments as a way to appeal to Trump.
Trump’s argument appears to be that TV networks have limited time to fill, so if they’re focusing on a story, it’s important.
“He is very attuned to the fact that cable networks have 24 hours a day that they need to fill — and if you’re interesting, you are gold,” Newt Gingrich said.
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