New press secretary Sean Spicer offered some words of contrition to reporters during his first White House briefing – but then repeated his claim that President Trump's was the 'most watched inauguration ever.'

Spicer tried to diffuse tension with the gathered press corps following a Saturday tongue-lashing about the inaugural crowds and made claims about attendance that didn't stand up to scrutiny.

After he got asked point blank about whether he would tell the truth, Spicer offered a few accommodating remarks.

'Our intention is never to lie to you,' he told ABC's Jonathan Karl.

'It's an honor to do this. And yes, I believe that we have to be honest with the American people. I think sometimes we can disagree with the facts. There are certain things that we may – we may not fully understand when we come out,' he explained.

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White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said it was never his intention to lie, and reframed his remarks about the size of the inaugural crowd

'We're going to do the best every time we can. I'm going to come out here and tell you the facts as I know them. And if we make a mistake I'll do our best to correct it,' Spicer said.

'There are times when we believe something to be true, or we get something from an agency, or we act in haste because the information available wasn't complete, but our desire to communicate with the American people and make sure you have the most complete story at the time, and so we do it,' he explained.

Asked whether there was something he'd like to correct, Spicer mentioned his claim about Metro ridership, having indicated that Metro ridership exceeded Obama's in 2009.

White House Director of Strategic Communications Hope Hicks (L) and Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway (C) were on hand for Spicer's debut press briefing

White House spokesman Sean Spicer holds his first briefing in the White House briefing room

Spicer addressed reporters from the James Brady briefing room

Spicer spoke hours after Conway addressed the crowd size issue

'At the time the information that I was provided by the inaugural committee came from an outside agency,' he said.

'Knowing what we know now we can tell that WMATA's numbers were different,' he said, referencing a multi-state transportation agency.

Spicer had said: 'We know that 420,000 people used the D.C. Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama's last inaugural.' Those numbers didn't match up with the D.C. Metro's numbers.

Then, Spicer repeated his claim that it was the largest inauguration ever.

'If you add up the network streaming numbers, Facebook, YouTube, all of the various live-streamings that we have information on so far, I don't think there's any question that it was the largest-watched inauguration ever,' he said.

His remarks were tailored to digital and TV viewers, however.

'It was the most-watched inaugural. When you look at, look, you look at one network alone got 16.9 million people online. Another couple of the networks, there were tens of millions of people that watched that online. Never mind the audience that was here: 31 million people watched it on television,' he said.

THIS SHOULD BE EASY: White House press Secretary Sean Spicer takes the podium before his first daily briefing in the White House briefing room

Spicer joked at the top of the briefing that he wasn't in danger of being the most popular secretary, a reference to a blistering statement he read to reporters Saturday without taking questions

Reporters jammed into the briefing room for Spicer's first briefing. He delivered a tongue-lashing to reporters on Saturday but didn't take questions

'Combine that with the tens of millions of people that watched it online, on a device. It's unquestionable. And I don't see any numbers that dispute that. When you add up attendance, viewership, total audience in terms of tablets, phones, on television – I'd love to see any information that proves that otherwise.'

'And I don't see any numbers that dispute that. When you add up attendance, viewership, total audience in terms of tablets, phones, on television – I'd love to see any information that proves that otherwise,' he said.

... If you add up the network streaming numbers, Facebook, YouTube, all of the various live-streamings that we have information on so far, I don't think there's any question that it was the largest-watched inauguration ever.

Asked if the inauguration was watched by more than saw Ronald Reagan's in 1981, he said: 'I'm pretty sure that Reagan didn't have YouTube, Facebook or the Internet. Yeah, I think 41 million people watched his, 41 million watched his.'

He continued: 'So let's just take the Nielsen ratings, which are 31 million, and add it to CNN [online], 16.9 million. That's a little higher. So I'm just saying, I'm not – you're asking me for numbers. There's just two entities together.'

Later in the briefing, pressed on his earlier comments and whether he meant it was the largest in-person crowd, Spicer said, 'I am not.'

'I am saying that it was as the total largest audience witnessed in person and around the globe,' he said.

During his Saturday rant, Spicer, said, 'This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.'

He said it was the first time matting had been used to protect grass on the national Mall, affecting aerial photographs that showed huge white spaces among Trump's crowd, although photographs from earlier inaugurations showed that not to be the case. He maintained there were 720,000 people located on three sections of the mall.

Photographs along the parade route also showed empty bleachers, undermining Trump's frequent claims that his are the biggest crowds.

Even as he reached out to the press, Spicer revisited an attack launched by Trump over the weekend, going after a reporter who filed a false pool report stating that Trump had removed a bust of Martin Luther King, only to correct it afterward.

'There's this constant attempt to undermine his credibility and the movement he represents,' he said, bringing up the MLK bust.

'Where was the apology to the president of the United States? Where was the tweet to millions of people who through how racially insensitive that was?'

He tried to equate Trump White House statements and errors that occur in the press.

'There are times when you guys tweet something out or write a story and you publish a correction. … That doesn't mean that you were intentionally trying to mislead,' Spicer said. 'We should be afforded the same opportunity.'