Official Donald Trump spokesgoblin Sean Spicer delivered a press briefing (a term I use loosely here) earlier tonight to address the most important issue facing the American people: the size of Donald Trump’s inauguration crowd.

It appears that Donald Trump is really angry, because he essentially sent Spicer out in front of the press to blatantly lie for several minutes, while making weird excuses and sounding exactly like the propaganda arm of well-known dictators. You can watch the whole thing for yourself if you want, but if you don’t need another angry white dude yelling in your face, the high(low)lights were:

Spicer complaining that the white tarps to protect the grass created an optical illusion that made the empty spots stick out more compared to photos of Obama’s inauguration. That’s some straight up Men in Black neuralyzer, “it was just swamp gas reflecting off a weather balloon” bullshit, but even worse than Agent Jay’s attempt.

A bizarre insistence that Trump’s was the largest crowd ever to witness an inauguration, “period.” That’s … just not true, and it’s deeply unsettling to see a White House official, in an official capacity, try to “fact check” reporting with blatant lies.

Spicer’s agitation and the fact that he didn’t take a single question, especially when reporters shouted to ask how he could say it was the largest inauguration when he’d just said it was impossible to know hard numbers.

A claim that Trump’s chat with the CIA was a massive success, when reports suggest that, as usual, audible signs of support were coming from Trump staffers or supporters, not the CIA (further information suggests this is true, and that attending CIA officials did not view the event favorably, though some Trump-supporting CIA staff was likely in attendance), as Trump railed against the media and pledged to have the back of the intelligence community he’s attacked on Twitter.

The claim that we can’t know how many protestors there are, in a blatant attempt to undercut any stories that there were more protestors than inaugural attendees, without having to actually say that, because even they know that would go too far. That’s disgusting.

The fact that having this conversation at all is embarrassing.

Yet, here we are, still having the conversation. Why? Because it’s clearly driving Donald Trump nuts, and that can only help us. George W. Bush’s former press secretary hinted as much on Twitter, stating quite bluntly that, judging by his own experience, Spicer likely had direct orders from Trump to lie his ass off.

Of course, as usual, while it’s worthwhile to keep Trump as angry with us as we are with him by poking him with stories like this, it’s important to focus on potentially more important matters. Right now, those may very well be the fact that he told the CIA that “maybe we’ll have another chance” to take the oil from the Middle East, as well as an executive order he signed aimed at undermining the ACA before it’s destroyed entirely. He also shut down an attempt to give homeowners a break on costs, in favor of stockpiling more money to help out banks—but don’t worry; it’ll have very little effect on the rich!

It’s OK. We promise we can annoy the crap out of him and pay attention to the issues at the same time. We hope you’ll all continue to do so with us.

(image via Women’s March)

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