Under continuous pressure to provide evidence on Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claim that he was wiretapped by Barack Obama, the White House went on the back foot yet again saying the President used the word 'wiretapped' in quotes, referring to the Obama administration broadly and not accusing his predecessor of personal involvement.
More than two weeks after Trump fired off a string of tweets levelling unprecedented allegations against his predecessor, the media present at the daily press briefing continued to attack White House press secretary Sean Spicer with demands of proof.
The briefing took a more debate-like tone when reporters shot questions to Spicer if claims made by the President and his administration can even be trusted, reports CNN.
"When can we trust the president? When he says something, can we trust that it's real? Is it phony or real when he says that President Obama was wiretapped?" NBC's Peter Alexander asked Spicer.
"He doesn't really think that President Obama went up and tapped his phone personally. But I think there's no question that the Obama administration, that there were actions about surveillance and other activities that occurred in the 2016 election. That is a widely reported activity that occurred back then," Spicer replied.
He then went on to state that the President used the word 'wiretapped' in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities, when he tweeted on March 4th that "Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower" and accused Obama of being a "bad" or "sick guy."
"The president used the word 'wiretapped' in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities during that. It is interesting how many news outlets reported that this activity was taking place during the 2016 election cycle and now are wondering where the proof is. It is many of the same outlets in this room that talked about the activities that were going on back then," Spicer added.
However, in each of the four tweets Trump fired off leveling the accusation, Trump referred specifically to phone tapping -- and only used quotation marks in two of those.
A week ago, Spicer had asserted that Trump's tweets do speak for themselves, but on Monday went on to state that the President told Spicer he was referring to means of surveillance beyond wiretapping in his tweets, and seemed unable to provide evidence that Obama had wiretapped Trump.
Finally, the reporter pressed Spicer for a yes or no answer asking, "Can you say affirmatively that whenever the president says something, we can trust it to be real?"
"If he's not joking, of course," Spicer replied.
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