Sean Spicer | President Donald J. Trump’s Former White House Press Secretary and the New York Times Best-Selling Author

Audio Transcription

Speaker 1:
On this special quarantined edition of the Thrive Time Show, I’m joined with Sean Spicer who is the former White House press secretary.

Speaker 2:
And I’m also present.

Speaker 1:
A New York Times bestselling author, a Dancing With the Stars contestant, and he joins us to share what it’s like to work directly for President Trump-

Speaker 2:
Excuse me, boss-

Speaker 1:
He shares with us about his new Newsmax show, Spicer and Co.

Speaker 2:
Whoa.

Speaker 1:
He also shares with us about … is that spray paint?

Speaker 2:
Well, it could be. There’s no label on it.

Speaker 1:
He also shares with us about President Trump’s sleep patterns. That is spray paint.

Speaker 2:
Well, the corona cannot live in this environment.

Speaker 3:
Three, two, one, boom. You are now entering the dojo of mojo and the Thrive Time Show.

Speaker 4:
(singing).

Speaker 5:
Sonic boom.

Speaker 1:
Yes, yes, yes and yes. Thrive nation, on today’s show we are interviewing the former White House press secretary and the Dancing With the Stars star, the incredible one and only Sean Spicer, the spicy one. Welcome onto the show. How are you sir?

Sean Spicer:
I am well. How are you doing? I assume self-quarantining?

Speaker 1:
Oh, I am self quarantining like you wouldn’t believe, my friend.

Sean Spicer:
Good.

Speaker 1:
Nobody’s more clean than myself. I’ve got Lysol everywhere. Guys, spray it down over there.

Speaker 2:
Okay.

Speaker 1:
No, over there.

Speaker 2:
I’ll get it.

Speaker 1:
Is that spray paint?

Speaker 2:
It’ll kill the corona. It will kill it.

Speaker 1:
I don’t know if spray paint helps kill viruses.

Speaker 2:
It’s going to kill the corona.

Speaker 1:
I can’t breathe.

Speaker 2:
[crosstalk 00:02:02].

Speaker 1:
It’s too much.

Speaker 2:
I’ll kill the corona. [inaudible 00:02:06].

Speaker 1:
Now, I understand that you are a huge Patriots fan, and a huge Red Sox fan. Is this correct?

Sean Spicer:
It is. It is a dark time for us, though. I think we’ve gotten rid of the entire starting lineup though.

Speaker 1:
Well, let’s do this here. I want to start off … a lot of people know you from the White House press secretary days there, working with President Trump. What have you been doing since then for the listeners out there that might’ve lost track of what you’ve been up to since you’ve moved on from that position?

Sean Spicer:
So, well thanks for asking. I left the White House September 1st of 2017. I wrote a book called The Briefing, which took up a lot of time. And it went out in that July, and then went on a book tour. I also started two firms, one of which is just a strategic consulting firm. And the other one is political firm called Point One. We advise Republican political candidates up and down the ballot, specifically with their mail strategy. So all that stuff that clogs your mailbox, that’s us.

Sean Spicer:
And then last year, I was a contestant on season 28 of Dancing With the Stars. And although I kind of knew it from the outset, I realized real quick I have no future in dancing. And so since then, on Super Tuesday of this year, I launched a new show starting every week night, six o’clock on Newsmax Television.

Speaker 1:
And tell us about the new show. Somebody out there says, “I want to check out the new show.” What’s the new show about?

Sean Spicer:
So the new show is basically a combination of a talk show and a discussion, kind of show merged together. And what I mean by that is a lot of times you’ll see a host, their job is to be neutral, to get out there and interview guests. And we do that. But we also do it with a host, myself, who has been in the arena and the game. I spent 25 years plus in Washington D.C. working on campaigns, working on the National Party in the White House, 21 years in the military.

Sean Spicer:
And so part of what I want to do is that when I interview somebody, inject with my experience and my knowledge so that it’s not just the guest [inaudible 00:04:18] I think I can push back sometimes and make suggestions or points that the guest might not just make. And so we try to tell people that we feel like the show is a dinner conversation that you’re invited to and you get to listen in on a lot of the questions and discussion that would happen around the dinner table on topics that are before the country on any given day.

Speaker 1:
I have to ask you, going back to your time working with President Trump, and I’m not looking for a salacious comment or any got-you question. I just want to ask you, what is it like to work with President Trump on a daily basis? Can you explain the energy or what it’s like, the aura of working with President Trump?

Sean Spicer:
Yeah, it’s a great question, but I don’t think it’s an easy answer because there are some days that it was really fun and exciting and different, and there are some days when it was some of the most intense pressure cooked kind of days and hours that I’ve ever experienced. And I will say, what I always tell people about Trump is that you know where you stand with him.

Sean Spicer:
There were days when I knew I was in the dog house and he let me know, and then there were days where he would sit there and heap praise on you for a job well done. And it wasn’t … so you always knew where you stood with the guy, but when you were down it was tough. I mean, he is a demanding guy. He works long and hard hours and he expects the people who work for him to be very results-oriented.

Speaker 1:
How many hours a day do you think he works?

Sean Spicer:
Well, let’s put it this way. I think there’s no question he’s up before six. So somewhere probably in the five o’clock hour he’s up and he’s … I don’t think I’ve ever known him to go to bed before 12:30, one o’clock, so somewhere between 18 and 20 hours.

Speaker 1:
That’s amazing. Okay. So in your book, The Brief: Politics, the Press and the President, what inspired you to write that book?

Sean Spicer:
It’s a great question. In fact, it’s been pointed out before when I left the White House, I said, “I’m not going to write a book.” I had been warned that it just took a lot of time and effort and I had a lot of opportunities and people said, “Just so you know, you go write this book and it’s going to get in the way in a lot of the things that you might want to do.” And so I initially didn’t do it. And then what happened was I had been on the speaking circuit starting in September, and by about November, I realized that I was tired of going to events or reading stories about how I felt.

Sean Spicer:
So people would write stories and say, “Spicer felt X in this particular situation or at this particular moment, this is what was going through his mind.” And I kept thinking to myself, “Okay, either you can leave it to others to write about your experience and your feelings or you can write it yourself.” And I chose … I thought, “Okay, it’s up to me to do this, not let other people tell it.”

Speaker 1:
You, in your book, chapter seven, it’s titled Baptism by Fire. What is this chapter of The Brief: Politics, the Press and the President about? The chapter Baptism by Fire?

Sean Spicer:
So the chapter is basically about getting thrown into the deep end with a weight around you. And this idea of … Trump was a disruptor and so you go into … I’d been brought up to some degree, if you will, in the establishment of the party and I’d worked for three years in the Bush White House. And so there was this sense of how things were supposed to work and Trump was basically throwing out the entire rule book on how things are supposed to work and was going to do it his way.

Sean Spicer:
And so for me it was a baptism by fire because you were trying to do what you thought was supposed to happen. But here was a guy who didn’t really care about the historical norms or protocols. He said, “I got four years to get results. I don’t really care how it’s supposed to work.” And that’s a very different mindset to get used to. And I also point out in this that for 20-something years, whether it was in the military or working for members of congress or campaigns, my job was always the person that people turn to and said, “Okay, what’s our strategy for this? How do we achieve these messaging goals?”

Sean Spicer:
And you’d write up a plan and present it with them and work with the principal, kind of get it to where you wanted and then execute it. The thing that was so different with Trump is he knew what he wanted to do, how he wanted to do it. And your job was sort of to support it, to reinforce it, not to lead it. And so it’s a very, very different dynamic. I mean, it’s almost like hiring a lawyer to plead your case and then the lawyer sits there while you craft out the opening, closing arguments and what witnesses to call and how to script it. And you just say, “Okay, lawyer, follow along.” That’s kind of what it was.

Speaker 1:
Can you give one example of how President Bush, who I have a lot of respect for, and President Trump did something different? It can be something just little, something big. What is one thing they did differently? Because they’re both guys who I admire, but what do they do differently from each other?

Sean Spicer:
Well I think the biggest thing is sort of just style. I mean, I was the Assistant US Trade Rep under Bush, and there were times when we were negotiating sort of the Doha Trade Agreement in Geneva in the last couple of months of the Bush administration. And we would work policy through the inter-agency process. And for those who aren’t familiar, meaning that when you make a decision in government it’s normally not one agency. One agency that’s leading it, but you’re coordinating with all the other agencies. You kind of come up with a course of action or a recommended solution if you will, and present it up the chain to the principal. And that’s how Bush operated. So you didn’t go rogue, you didn’t bring something up. You went through the process and then you said, “Okay, Mr. President, this is the recommendation of your team.

Sean Spicer:
In Trump world, what he wanted was, “Okay, you’re for this, you’re against this, come sit down in the Oval Office and tell me the difference.” And he wanted you to hash it out. He wanted to hear the two best sides of a story and make it almost … I wouldn’t say fight it out, but go at it so that he heard the two most compelling cases and could make a decision, as opposed to having a team bring him the consolidated effort that everybody’d had.

Sean Spicer:
And it was just fascinating to see the difference that here on one hand you had a president that was very steeped in the process of how it’s supposed to work. And another one who said, “I don’t really care, I want to hear the best ideas and then I’ll make a decision myself.”

Speaker 1:
You obviously are doing this whole quarantine thing. We’re all in this together here. So where are you at this point?

Sean Spicer:
Alexandria, Virginia. The show is nightly and I’ve started to tape the show. I have a studio in our basement here and I tape the show here. Obviously the control room’s still in D.C. and my cohost is in D.C., And we’ve all … whenever, he’s socially distanced.

Speaker 1:
And for the listeners out there are, they usually have to hear something three times before it sinks into our cranium. What’s the name of the show again? One more time.

Sean Spicer:
It’s called Spicer and Company.

Speaker 1:
Spicer-

Sean Spicer:
Yeah [crosstalk 00:11:48] and it’s on Newsmax Television every night at six. If you go to my website, seanspicer.com, there’s a little channel finder there and you can go look now whether you have Xfinity, Direct Dish, Vios, whatever you have, it tells you what number it’s on and we’re on every major cable outlet.

Speaker 1:
Now, I would like to get your take on this because now that you are not in the day-to-day laser show, that is the White House and you’re doing your own show, I’m sure you’ve been able to watch the news and I’m sure you’ve been able to see the Neil Ferguson prediction of 2.2 million Americans potentially dying from the coronavirus. And then you’ve seen Doctor Deborah Berks dial that back down to maybe a 100,000 or 200,000 potential deaths.

Speaker 1:
How do you see this whole thing playing out, knowing President Trump and his personality, how do you see this all playing out in your mind?

Sean Spicer:
Well, first, I mean, I think part of what has to happen is, the big question is how many people listen to what the government’s saying. Because if this … what we have seen from everything that we’ve been told so far is that if people do socially distance, if we do listen to the recommendations, wash our hands, do all that stuff that minimizes the spread, then we can get over this sooner rather than later.

Sean Spicer:
And I think as long as the President sees things working, he’ll be good. He understands that you can’t … I mean, opening up the government and then having things fall apart again is not success and that would not reflect well. So I think he gets it.

Sean Spicer:
I also think that what’s been helpful is the country’s recognized the leadership coming from the administration and the President’s poll numbers overall and then the handling of the COVID-19 have reflected well on him, and as long as he keeps seeing that and knowing that the course of action that he’s taking is being appreciated, for lack of a better word, by the American people, or reflects positively right, that they’re [inaudible 00:13:46] approval, because that’s what you want as a leader, to know that people are saying you’re making the right decisions, you’re leading well.

Sean Spicer:
Then I think we’re going to keep going as we are, but we’re going to have to make a big assessment at the end of April. How is the economy doing? Because right now I think people are willing to put up with a lot because they recognize it. But if we start having supply chain interruptions and all of these people who are at home self-quarantining aren’t doing their jobs, which starts to interrupt supply chains and you’re not getting the products and services that you need, whether that’s food or household goods or whatever, it’s going to be interesting.

Sean Spicer:
And then the second piece of that is just the overall economy. There’s going to be more and more people that are out of work, not working. And how long do people keep giving to these GoFundMe campaigns that are taking care of waiters and bartenders and other tipped employees that are dependent on these hourly wages, these tips, these interactions, these service employees?

Sean Spicer:
So, I mean, we have a bunch of X factors and I think the next one to three weeks we might get by pretty well and then the question is, what happens after that?

Speaker 1:
Now, in our country, and if you don’t agree with my math or if I’m misquoting something, please correct me. But I understand the initial prediction for the deaths from the coronavirus was 2.2 million. That was the initial prediction at the worst case scenario. And we have a population of 329 million people. Which means worst case scenario, we could have lost 0.006% of our population to death.

Speaker 1:
Based on our current trending, because the average American, according to Forbes, lives check to check. 78% of Americans are check to check. What number of people is acceptable for an administration to lose, when we know the common flu wipes out 80,000 people a year? In your mind, having been in the White House, seeing this. What is an acceptable number? Because the people who listen to this show know that my acceptable number of deaths is very high to keep the economy going. But my worldview is shared with very few people. So what is your take on that number that’s an acceptable number?

Sean Spicer:
The way you phrase the question is very interesting because if you stack up the number of deaths related to COVID against, let’s say, people who drown in a swimming pool or people who get into an automobile accident, it may not be that big relative, but I think because of the media attention, right, it’s exacerbated. And that’s the issue, is that it’s not just relative to X. What other deaths people have gone by, whether it’s cars or you know, acts of violence, what have you, because when the media is completely fixated on this, then that attention exacerbates each and every one of those deaths, right?

Sean Spicer:
So think about it. You’re hearing the first veteran died the other day, or not veteran, but active duty service person in New Jersey, and that would normally not even merit a news story, had the person passed away from an automobile accident or from some illness. But because it’s this unknown virus that’s taken hold worldwide, it’s going to get attention.

Sean Spicer:
And so you’re going to see these deaths play out a lot more than they would. And so to answer your question, I think it’s got to be a much lower number because the number ticks up and no one stops. Let’s be honest, nobody stops when you hear the news and it’s this person died or this home … I just heard another nursing home had X number of folks, and I forgot which state it was, earlier today. And it still causes you to go, “Oh my gosh, how tragic is that?”

Sean Spicer:
No one stops in these kind of conversations and goes, “Well, you know that X number of people died from cancer last week.” That’s just not how we think.

Speaker 1:
And I do, and that’s-

Sean Spicer:
And so I don’t-

Speaker 1:
… why people think I’m a horrible person. That’s why. I’m happy with who I am, but that’s how I think. And you’re correct. No one thinks that way. Nobody thinks that way. You are 100% correct. Why don’t we think that way?

Sean Spicer:
Oh God, I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist.

Speaker 1:
No, I just want to get your take. I love your takes.

Sean Spicer:
Because I think part of it is these arcs, right? So let’s just take death by swimming pool, right? So I’m sure in the summer, I don’t know what the number is, but I’m sure it’s a lot. But it happens over a massive amount of geography. So throughout the country it happens. And so it doesn’t … and then [inaudible 00:18:13] don’t get the attention that a virus does.

Speaker 1:
Yeah.

Sean Spicer:
And I think because it’s new, it’s novel, right? So your point about the flu, the flu happens every year.

Speaker 1:
Right.

Sean Spicer:
I think the number is between 30 and 70,000 people or 59,000 rather, die every year. So it’s baked in. So every time … so if people start dying this year from the regular flu, people go, “Oh, okay, well that’s in line with what normally happens.” Because this COVID thing is brand new, every death is on the new thing, God forbid. But if, if the coronavirus were to hang around for a decade or two, my guess is that by year nine or 10 we’re not approaching each death with even close to the same attention we do now. But it’s still novel. And that’s what’s driving the attention.

Speaker 1:
What’s crazy is that even if a million people died of the coronavirus, that’s just 0.03% of our population. And it’s like, to me, I’d be like, “You know, if we’re going to kill 0.03% of our population, we’ll try to help them, but if we can quarantine those people to save our whole economy.” To me it’s like a logical thing, but I don’t think very few people share my worldview. But I need to go see a therapist, I think. So I’ll just hit the boo button here because I’m sure-

Sean Spicer:
I think, look, I get your point though, because I argue this sometimes when you’re talking about other things, where I’ll say, “Okay, well, relative to others.” I just think it’s very difficult when you’re talking about death or injury to say, “Okay, well, is it a big deal because X number of people died from this disease, so is that …” I mean, I think anytime that you can prevent a death, we should, right? So I think when you hear something tragic happened, when someone dies because they weren’t wearing a seatbelt, no one goes, “Well, that’s in line with last year’s numbers. It’s still tragic, and-

Speaker 1:
Oh, I got to … You are correct. I want to illuminate and showcase your genius a little bit more before I let you get back to what you’re doing because your show’s going to be a hit, because your personality’s a hit. I want people to hear the Spicer and Co. flavor here.

Speaker 1:
I want to ask you this. Three final questions. Two from me and one from Josh. What was it like, what was your daily flow, the first hour of every day while working with Trump? The first hour.

Sean Spicer:
So I would get up at five o’clock in the morning and I’d drive straight to the White House. There’s this little executive gym, it’s like a hotel gym reserved just for senior staff and I would go in there, and I used to joke that it was an insult to the word workout, because I would sit on an elliptical, my feet would go back and forth, and there were a couple of TVs in there. I’d have them both on and I’d have two iPhones and I’d be trying to just go, “Okay, what happened last night? What am I going to get asked right now? What has President tweeted?

Sean Spicer:
Because in all honesty, you can know … when you’re in that kind of a job, I would say 70 to 85, if not 90% of what you do, you know by 7:30 AM. What are the morning shows leading with, what is trending on Twitter. Those are what people are going to be asking about, inquiring and asking for followup. So I would spend the first hour trying to get as much of a handle on the day as possible.

Speaker 1:
Okay Josh, get ready to one up me here. Sean Spicer, the host of Spicer and Co. Sir, what was your favorite old-school jam in high school? I need to know now.

Sean Spicer:
I know it had to be something from U2.

Speaker 1:
Really? Like Joshua Tree kind of thing?

Sean Spicer:
Yeah, that was my first concert, actually. And it was just a big … I had a bunch of guys, U2 had gone in and then we also had like this whole Depeche Mode, what was the other one? What was it? Shoot. Morrissey, and I mean there was a whole group of guys that I hung out with. But I think more than anything, U2 was probably … that was right around when Joshua Tree came out and [crosstalk 00:21:58].

Speaker 1:
Oh yeah. Wow, unbelievable. Unbelievable. Okay, Josh, what’s your final question here for the Spicy One?

Josh:
Hey Sean. First of all, thanks for your military service, sir, and then with working so closely with President Bush and President Trump, what idiosyncrasy or trait or habit did you see from them that our listeners could implement and learn from that could help grow all our … Most of our listeners are small business owners. So what did you learn from them that could be valuable for our listeners?

Sean Spicer:
I think Bush was very disciplined. I mean, everything was regimented, in terms of how he operated his day, how he saw people, how he processed information. He is a very disciplined individual. And so that was something that I saw from him. With Trump, he is a very gut-oriented guy, and the thing that … And this goes back to a question that you guys were asking me just a minute ago, but for me it was always understanding how much the value of your gut is and what you should be doing and what the message should be.

Speaker 1:
Sean Spicer, you blew our minds multiple times and I wish you the best of luck on your new show, Spicer and Co., and I can tell by the way you sound, you are looking tremendous today.

Sean Spicer:
No, no, I feel good. It’s the sweatpants that are doing it.

Speaker 1:
Oh, beautiful. All right man, well, enjoy a quarantini tonight, and be safe, and Lysol it up and we’ll talk to you soon.

Sean Spicer:
Thanks guys. I really appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 1:
Take care.

Speaker 1:
And now, without any further ado-

Group:
Three, two, one, boom.

Speaker 5:
Boom. Boom. Boom.