(CNN) President Donald Trump's new press secretary, Sean Spicer, greeted reporters on Thursday with a "Happy Groundhog Day," and followed it with a White House briefing that clocked in at just 25 minutes. The next day, he ended his briefing after 30 minutes.

The back-to-back compact sessions led to some grumbling among the press corps that the briefings are becoming unusually short under the new administration. Another Spicer briefing on January 25 lasted just 28 minutes.

Spicer's had a tough start to his new role -- Saturday Night Live even went after him in a searing skit featuring Melissa McCarthy.

Spicer did have three appearances that topped the 40-minute mark, and two ran nearly an hour or more -- including an extended appearance following his fiery January 21 statement about the size of Trump's inauguration crowd.

That said, even if White House briefings in the era of Trump start regularly wrapping up quickly, is a half hour really unusually short? Is the criticism justified?

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