Wow. Oh, thank you very much.
Yeah.
I have one already.
But thank you for the second one.
I appreciate that.
Oh, give me that one back, then.
No, no. I'll keep this one.
Thank you, Sean. - That was personal.
How you doing? Wow.
You're dressing like a pimp.
What's going on?
New line of business.
Is this Hollywood Sean Spicer we're looking at right now?
I don't know.
I like the idea.
Apparently, the first time I did this, not with you,
but went out, I had a little issue with the suit.
So-- - Yeah, right?
Yeah. Yeah, right.
- So I tried to fix that. - How you doing?
Everything all right? - Great, thank you.
Are you happy to be out of there?
Are you adjusting to life on the outside?
- I am. - You are, yeah.
Yeah.
When you wake up in the morning--
It's later.
--and you look at Twitter, do you
have just a feeling of great relief and calm wash over you?
I take a long time before I get to the tweets, yes.
JIMMY KIMMEL: You do. It does take a little while.
Yeah.
JIMMY KIMMEL: And do you ever look at them,
and do you ever go, like, this is how I would handle this?
- Nope. - No.
No.
You've just blocked it off completely--
I've moved on. Yeah.
JIMMY KIMMEL: --out of your mind.
Correct.
JIMMY KIMMEL: You still talk to the president, you said.
Yes? - I do.
Yeah. - How often do you speak to him?
As often as he likes.
JIMMY KIMMEL: And he calls you? - He does.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Or do you ever call him?
I do not call him. JIMMY KIMMEL: You do not call.
I wait to be called.
When he calls you, is it like, oh, no.
What is this gonna be about?
The first time, I was like, what did I do wrong?
JIMMY KIMMEL: Right.
It was right after your show, the first--
JIMMY KIMMEL: Was it really? - Yeah.
And I was like, oh, God.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Was it really? - Swear to God.
Yeah.
JIMMY KIMMEL: And what--
was he mad, or no?
No.
He said, great job on Jimmy Kimmel.
- Oh, he did. - And I went, [SIGH].
JIMMY KIMMEL: OK.
Like, you know I don't work there any--
JIMMY KIMMEL: Yeah, I know.
But it's funny that you still have--
I think I have this with people that I worked for in the past,
where you still feel like they're
your boss, even if they're not necessarily your boss.
Yeah.
And I think that part of what I pride myself on to some degree
is that all of the people that I've worked for, the one
quality that I think all of them would agree on
is that I've been a loyal person to them.
I don't believe that you can have a job like that,
share with them your private counsel, and then go out
and talk about it.
So I think most of the people that I've worked
for in various capacities have always said, hey, look,
this is a guy that--
JIMMY KIMMEL: Well, what about this ?
Huh? That's about me.
That's my life.
That's not--
Yeah.
No, I do feel like you could have got into a lot of stuff
that you didn't get into.
And this is not a tell-all.
It's a tell-some book, right?
Tell-me book.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Yeah.
And you keep the tell-all stuff for maybe another book
somewhere down the line?
No.
Or just to make sure the president
doesn't have you rubbed out?
No.
I'm pretty confident that I'm OK.
Is the president the best boss you ever had?
I'd been honored to work for a lot of great people,
including--
And so no, he's not.
That's not what I said.
I will say this-- my wife is the best
boss that I've ever worked for.
How's that?
I'm on pretty safe ground.
Did he ever-- and I know this is gonna seem like a joke.
Did he ever make you cry?
- No. - Never did.
No.
Never-- even when you went home?
And it just was like, oh, my God, what have I gotten into?
My world is falling down around me.
No. There's a lot of emotions.
But-- JIMMY KIMMEL: But never tears.
Never tears. JIMMY KIMMEL: OK.
All right.
Does he tweet from the toilet?
Is it possible?
Not something I've ever asked.
I don't know. JIMMY KIMMEL: You don't know?
No. Hmm.
Yeah. That's interesting.
You talk about loyalty to the president and your job
as press secretary.
Which do you think is more important,
loyalty or the truth?
I don't think it's a binary choice.
I think that you can tell the person that you work
for if there's a problem with what they're saying,
and that you would give them the best advice and counsel
you can.
But I don't think that it's a binary choice,
you have to choose one over the other.
Right. But I'm asking you--
I'm not saying you have to.
But in that position--
Well, you always--
the answer is you always have to go
out and maintain your credibility and the truth, yes.
So that would take precedent over the first [INAUDIBLE]..
Did you always go out and maintain
your credibility and the truth?
I think there are times when I went out and expressed what
the president believed or a view that he had that people didn't
agree with or that they were saying that that was not true
and would blame me for the fact that I was communicating
a view or a belief that he had.
You felt like it was a kill the messenger type situation?
In many cases.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Yeah.
And these are things that might not have been things
you personally agreed with.
Right.
I've been doing this for 25 years.
I've never had a boss or something that I've
represented where I've said, 100%,
I agree with what they believe.
But that's not the job you sign up for.
You're not saying, I'm gonna agree with you on everything.
You're saying, I will do the best job
I can communicating the thoughts and beliefs
and ideas that you have.
Your book starts--
the beginning of the book is the end of your--
- Don't give it away. - --time at the White House.
No, it's in the beginning of the book.
It is.
So in the beginning of the book,
you talk about this letter of resignation that you wrote
and that you'd written--
It in May.
--it in May.
And then in July you wound up resigning?
Yeah.
So-- oh, we're just passed the one-year
anniversary of your time there.
So why did you write it in May?
I talk about this in the book, that I
had become the story too often.
And that's not a good place for a spokesperson to be.
You're not supposed to be talking or defending yourself.
You're supposed to be communicating
on behalf of the person or the institution that you represent.
And I knew it wasn't getting better.
And I wanted to make sure that I was
ready because at some point, I knew that the end was coming.
And it was coming sooner rather than later.
And at that time, did someone in the administration
try to talk you out of leaving?
When I offered my resignation of the president,
he asked me to stay.
I thought that there was no way that the situation
would turn itself around.
He deserved a clean slate.
I didn't think that my presence was ever
going to allow that to happen.
And I thought that it was in the best interest of both of us
to move on.
At that time, he hired Anthony Scaramucci to be--
would he have been your--
would you have reported to him?
The way that the structure would work then, yes.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Yeah. And that was unacceptable.
Correct.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Yeah.
And in fact, Anthony Scaramucci, you mentioned in the book,
texted you when he got the job and said, give me a call.
And you did not give him a call.
Correct.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Why didn't you call him?
Because I didn't want to have that conversation.
I'd already thought about that this was God telling me,
here's your off-ramp.
Take it.
And I didn't think--
I've nothing against him personally.
I didn't think that structure was sustainable.
And I felt like I knew what I wanted to do.
I had talked to my wife and my mom and said, I'm comfortable
and I'm at peace with this decision.
And I didn't want to have a conversation that would lead
to any other outcome but that.
What did your mom think of all the abuse you got, of all--
What abuse?
--the things you were--
well, you know, obviously, there were a lot
of jokes made at your expense.
Many by you.
Many by me.
True.
That's true.
Some were fine.
JIMMY KIMMEL: That's true.
And I'm sure--
I mean, it's one thing to be you.
It's another thing to be your mom.
You know, my mom, my dad, and my wife have been my strongest
advocates and supporters.
And I think there were clearly times
where she felt for me in a way that only a mother can.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Did she ever say, go in there
and tell that son of a bitch Trump to stop making you lie?
My mother would never speak like that.
She would never speak that way.
- No. - No.
She'd say, I'm praying for you.
JIMMY KIMMEL: She'd say, I'm praying for you?
Yeah. JIMMY KIMMEL: Yeah.
Yeah, I'd imagine there was a lot of praying going on
during that time of your life.
Sean Spicer is here with us.
He has written a book about his time in the White House.
You got a tweet from President Trump when the book came out.
He wrote, a friend of mine and a man who has truly seen politics
and life as few others ever will,
Sean Spicer, has written a great new book, "The Briefing--
Politics, the Press, and the President."
It is a story told with both heart and knowledge.
Really good, go get it!"
Now, there's no chance he read this book, right?
I mean, there's-- he does not--
I know he likes stuff about him.
But on the other hand, having to read?
Forget about it.
He has a lot on his plate, so I'm sure he skimmed it.
Did you run any of it by him beforehand?
I kept him up to date, yes.
I did not give him the entire--
because we really ran up to the deadline to get this book done.
But I kept him up to date, told him what was going on,
and shared some passages with him.
If he didn't like something, would you have--
- We'd know about it. - --extracted it from the book?
I think the tweet would have been a little different.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Yeah.
But if he had said, I don't like that.
Would you have said, all right.
I'm not going to put it in there?
I would have considered it.
I don't think that that was going to ever be the case.
As I mentioned at the outset, that wasn't my goal.
It was to tell my story and to kind of tell
some behind-the-scenes aspects of what happened
over the campaign, the convention, and the transition
early on in the White House.
You had a book party at the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC.
I did.
Did the president charge you for the room?
Yes. JIMMY KIMMEL: He did?
Well, he didn't. The hotel did.
JIMMY KIMMEL: The hotel charged you for the room.
Yeah. You're gonna get me in trouble.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Was there any kind of a discount
given for the room?
I think I did pretty well, yeah.
I would hope you would get some kind
of a discount in some way.
It was like a Groupon.
Do you think that Rudy Giuliani
is doing a good job defending the president right now?
I think he's got a relationship that goes back
decades with the president.
And one of the things, whether it's that or being a spokesman,
is there's got to be a comfort level, clearly.
And I think he has that with the president.
What would your advice be if you were them,
and Rudy was out there saying, collusion-- you know, all
these things that he's saying.
You've seen this, I'm sure.
I would probably not want to give a ton of advice right now.
I'll let them figure out the message.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Yeah.
You are doing a podcast now.
What is the title of the podcast?
Everything's Going to Be All Right.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Do you--
why is that the title of the podcast?
It's a little double entendre on the right.
You get it? I'm conservative.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Oh, I see.
I thought it was like the world's ending,
but don't worry. We're going to come out of this.
Well, maybe that--
we're bringing in a whole new audience now.
Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah.
Maybe so.
Yeah, people who are the end-of-the-worlders.
Yeah.
And what do you talk about on the podcast?
Current events, issues, whatever's--
I mean, literally, it's just a current events
podcast that Katie Pavlich and I are able to talk
about what's happening.
We talk about sports, pop culture, politics.
Do you think when the president calls
news fake news that that is a disservice to journalism
and to the country?
Yeah, so I think that, like every industry, there's good
and there's bad.
I write in the book, by name, that there are a lot of really
good journalists out there, that I may not
agree with their stories, but they're
tough, tenacious, and fair, and very professional.
And I think it's important to recognize the good if you're
going to call out the bad.
So I've never tried to paint everybody with a broad brush
because I think that there are some individuals that don't do
as good of a job, that don't adhere
to the same professional standards and behavior
that I think should be expected within that industry.
But I don't think that you should
throw out the entire industry because of some bad apples.
Do you disagree with the idea of fake news?
No, I think there is fake news.
There's no question about it.
I think there's no one that probably doesn't think
that there's actually made-up stories that
get thrown out there.
I think that there's a difference
between fake stories, stories you don't like,
and stories that have falsehoods in them.
JIMMY KIMMEL: OK.
Donald Trump, according to your book,
when you had that famous moment with the crowd size--
and I'm sure you're sick of hearing this.
But you'd had a press conference that he didn't like.
And you had, then, that press conference that--
well, you said after-- what happened
after that press conference, where you asserted
his views on the crowd size? - Yeah.
I'm going home.
And I'm like, this is--
this may be my first and--
I don't even think I have my ID yet.
And I'm like, OK, I'm done.
JIMMY KIMMEL: Oh, after that first press conference.
After the first one.
And so I knew that Monday was going to be when my first press
conference was supposed to be.
And I basically was like, if I don't knock this
out of the park, then I'm done.
And so after that one, that's when he was like, OK,
that's what I want more.
- He hugged you. - He did.
- Hmm. - We had a moment.
And does he wear cologne?
Does he have a scent?
Does he wear Trump cologne? - No.
I don't believe--
I've never-- I don't believe so, no.
Well--
These are questions I never expected.
Well, listen, that's why we're gonna work on the next book
together. - OK.
It's the tell-all book.
It's called "The Briefing--
Politics, the Press, and the President."
It's available now.
Sean Spicer, everybody.
Thank you, Sean.
If you liked that video, then put a ring on it.
Click the Subscribe button below.
Uh, uh, oh.