Yesterday, former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer – who spent the first six months of this year blatantly lying to the American public at the behest of an incompetent, misogynistic, and racist president – made a guest appearance at the Emmys.
His first ‘joke’ was to reference the initial scandal that made him a household name: blatantly lying that the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd was larger than Obama‘s, despite photographic evidence proving otherwise.
“This will be the largest audience to witness at Emmys, period,” he said, as he wheeled onto the stage with the lectern used to mock him on Saturday Night Live. “Both in person and around the world.”
The idea to bring Spicer to the Emmys was reportedly host Stephen Colbert‘s, and given his track record as Trump’s mouthpiece (the non-Twitter variety), has been widely criticised as the normalisation of fascism.
Is it supposed to be comical that the former White House spokesman is now tacitly admitting that he lied to the American people?
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 18, 2017
Five months ago, Sean Spicer denied that Hitler gassed people during the Holocaust. Sorry, but I’m not seeing the humor in that… https://t.co/6ChkFMjl6X
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) September 18, 2017
Well today, it appears that Spicer’s redemption tour is going just as well as he could have hoped. In an interview with the New York Times, he said that “of course” he regrets his defence of Trump’s inauguration size (which if you recall led to Kellyanne Conway introducing us to the the bullshit term, “alternative facts”).
“Of course I do, absolutely,” he said, explaining that his Emmys gig was “an attempt to poke a little fun at myself and add a little bit of levity to the event.”
Christ-a-fucking-live.
It follows Spicer’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, which was also criticised for going too lenient on the man. Colbert in fact appeared on the show the following night, and brought up Spicer as being someone he’d always wanted to meet.
“A certain part of me felt sorry for him,” said Kimmel.
“Really?” replied Colbert. “‘Cause he wasn’t apologising. He wants to be forgiven, but he won’t regret anything he did. You got to regret something you did to be forgiven.”
Weird, because some might argue that inviting Spicer to peddle a few jokes is an act of forgiveness. That said, judging by the way he was mobbed for selfies at the Emmys afterparty, he’s well on his way to being forgiven – or at the very least, appearing on Carpool Karaoke.
Or maybe, late night hosts across the goddamn spectrum will hold Spicer to even the barest modicum of accountability. Yeah. Do that.
