For the country’s most prominent political spokesman, Sean Spicer is not spending a whole lot of time in front of the camera.

Monday was the seventh straight day that Mr. Spicer, President Trump’s press secretary, declined to hold a televised White House press briefing, an unusually long drought for someone whose role is traditionally to be the most visible face of a presidential administration.

Instead, Mr. Spicer — who since the inauguration had become a highly rated, if often-parodied, staple of daytime television — conducted a question-and-answer session with no cameras allowed, over the objections of the White House Correspondents’ Association.

The briefing was certain to be contentious. For the first time, Mr. Spicer addressed explosive and unproven allegations Mr. Trump made over the weekend that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower during the presidential campaign.