Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that "there were times where I screwed up" during his seven-month tenure in the Trump administration.
"There is no question about it," Spicer told CNN commentator S.E. Cupp in an excerpt from an interview to air on HLN.
Spicer cited when he berated reporters over their articles about crowd size at Trump's inauguration — "I would say that's the first and foremost" — and noted when he said that Syrian President Bashar Assad was worse than Adolf Hitler, incorrectly stating that the German dictator did not use chemical weapons during World War II.
"I screwed that up royally," Spicer said.
Spicer, 46, the former chief strategist for the Republican National Committee, resigned in July over the hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director.
Scaramucci was fired days later by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.
Spicer often sparred with reporters during his tenure — and he was parodied on "Saturday Night Live" by actress Melissa McCarthy.
He told Cupp that on the days when those big errors occurred, "I sat back and said, 'You know, it's not my credibility.'
"I honestly went out every day to do the best job I could for the president of the United States, who gave me an unbelievable honor, and to do the best job for the American people.
"That's ultimately who you served.
"When I screwed up, it felt really bad," Spicer continued. "Because you're realizing that you're tarnishing your personal reputation, your family's reputation — your friends who like you and support you.
"Some of your colleagues — and ultimately, again, this administration and the American people, were who I wanted to do my best job for, my best for every single day."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.