Spicer: 'Offensive' to say Trump is 'out of control'

It’s “offensive” to suggest President Donald Trump is out of control, White House press secretary said Friday.

Trump tweeted seven times Friday morning, threatening the former FBI director he fired this week and floating the idea of canceling future White House press briefings because “it is not possible” for the president’s aides to speak “with perfect accuracy” given his activity.


“I talked to a former FBI official today who said that the president’s tweet, the implicit threat to former FBI Director James Comey indicates that the president, in his words, is simply ‘out of control,’” CNBC’s Eamon Javers asked Spicer at Friday afternoon’s briefing. “I’d like to get you to respond to that. Is he?”

Spicer had a terse reply. “That’s, frankly, offensive,” he said, pointing to and calling on another reporter to quickly move on from Javers’ line of questioning.

“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump warned in one of his tweets Friday morning. Spicer refused to expand on the president’s comments at the briefing, repeatedly declining to answer whether the president or any White House staff have recorded private conversations in the Oval Office.

“As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” Trump wrote in another set of posts. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future 'press briefings' and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”