White House press secretary Sean Spicer has said that President Trump’s call for Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails during the campaign should be viewed as a joke.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said during the Monday's press briefing that President Trump’s call for Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails during the campaign should be viewed as a joke.
Spicer made that comment as reporters asked about a series of tweets Trump had posted earlier in the day. The president had asserted that former President Obama “colluded or obstructed,” based on the reports that the previous administration was aware of the alleged Russian hacking but delayed taking any actions.
After an exchange about what the Obama administration did and didn’t do in response to the intelligence about the Russian meddling, NBC's Kristen Welker asked if there's potential hypocrisy given that in July, then-candidate Trump said at a press conference about Clinton's deleted emails, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
Spicer responded by saying, “He was joking at the time. We all know...”
Welker followed up, "He was joking? He says that as a candidate, and he was pressed during that press conference over and over again."
Staying firm on his initial response, Spicer added, "...I think the idea was...you had Hillary Clinton with a secret server...that's probably a bigger concern right now in terms of what they were doing and the lack of security that they had."