--- title: Sean Spicer Regrets Comments on Inauguration Crowd Size description: The former White House press secretary says it felt "really bad" when he messed up during his time working for Trump. canonical: https://time.com/5088900/sean-spicer-screwed-up-inauguration-hitler/ author: Abigail Abrams article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-01-04T22:35:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T11:26:49.830Z article:section: Politics og:title: 'I Screwed Up': Sean Spicer Says He Regrets Comments on Crowd Size and Hitler og:description: The former White House press secretary says it felt "really bad" when he messed up og:url: https://time.com/5088900/sean-spicer-screwed-up-inauguration-hitler/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcdaf3ca3cb99dc8a/6988f7297cdbac5a31d5b7c4/sean-spicer-trump-white-house-press-secretary-crowd-size.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3599 og:image:height: 2024 og:image:alt: US-ENTERTAINMENT-TELEVISION-EMMYS-SHOW og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'I Screwed Up': Sean Spicer Says He Regrets Comments on Crowd Size and Hitler twitter:description: The former White House press secretary says it felt "really bad" when he messed up twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcdaf3ca3cb99dc8a/6988f7297cdbac5a31d5b7c4/sean-spicer-trump-white-house-press-secretary-crowd-size.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'I Screwed Up': Sean Spicer Says He Regrets Comments on Inauguration Crowd Size and Hitler > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Abigail Abrams](https://time.com/author/abigail-abrams/) ## Abigail Abrams Jan 4, 2018 10:35 PM UTC  Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer speaks onstage during the 69th Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theatre on Sept. 17, 2017 in Los Angeles. Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer speaks onstage during the 69th Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theatre on Sept. 17, 2017 in Los Angeles. FREDERIC J. BROWN—AFP/Getty Images by [Abigail Abrams](https://time.com/author/abigail-abrams/) ## Abigail Abrams Jan 4, 2018 10:35 PM UTC Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that he “screwed up” during his time serving in the Trump administration. “There were times where I screwed up, there’s no question about it,” he told conservative commentator S.E. Cupp [during an interview](http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/01/04/sean-spicer-se-cupp-intv-i-screwed-up-sot.cnn) set to air on her HLN show Thursday evening. “The inauguration, you brought it up,” Spicer said when asked to name examples of a moment he regretted. “There was an event where I was trying to talk about how evil Assad was and I screwed that up royally.” Spicer, who served as President Trump’s first press secretary, got off to a rough start with reporters when he [falsely claimed](http://time.com/4643724/donald-trump-first-press-briefing/) the crowd gathered at the 2017 inauguration was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.” Even as reporters pushed back and photographs showed that Trump’s crowd appeared much smaller than the one that had gathered from Barack Obama, the new president and Spicer [stood by their claim](http://time.com/4643927/sean-spicer-white-house-donald-trump-inauguration-press-briefing/). Since [his resignation](http://time.com/4868546/sean-spicer-resigns-anthony-scaramucci-donald-trump/) from the White House last summer, Spicer has tried to rehabilitate his image and [told the New York _Times_ in September](http://time.com/4946886/sean-spicer-inauguration-emmys-regret/) that he regrets attacking journalists over the crowd size issue. But the inauguration was far from the only time when Spicer made controversial remarks from the press secretary’s spot at the front of the briefing room. The other instance he mentioned in the Thursday interview occurred during an [April briefing](http://time.com/4734994/sean-spicer-syria-adolph-hitler-chemical-weapons-holocaust/) when Spicer was talking about Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, who had recently used chemical weapons to attack civilians. Spicer compared Assad to Adolf Hitler, and then incorrectly said the German dictator did not use chemical weapons on his own people. Hitler did use deadly pesticide gas to kill Jews and other prisoners his Nazi regime kept in concentration camps during the Holocaust. While Spicer said he was not happy with everything he did as press secretary, he maintained that the role was an “unbelievable honor.” “Look, I’m a very self-critical person,” Spicer said Thursday. “I honestly went out every day to do the best job I could for the president of the United States, who gave me an unbelievable honor, and to basically do the best job I could for the American people, because that’s ultimately who you serve.” “So when I screwed up, yeah it felt really bad,” Spicer added during the interview. “You’re realizing that you’re tarnishing your personal reputation, your family’s reputation, your friends who like you and support you, some of your colleagues and ultimately again this administration and the American people who I wanted to do my best for every single day.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5088900/sean-spicer-screwed-up-inauguration-hitler/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5088900/sean-spicer-screwed-up-inauguration-hitler/"},"headline":"'I Screwed Up': Sean Spicer Says He Regrets Comments on Inauguration Crowd Size and Hitler","datePublished":"2018-01-04T22:35:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T11:26:49.830Z","description":"The former White House press secretary says it felt \"really bad\" when he messed up","url":"https://time.com/5088900/sean-spicer-screwed-up-inauguration-hitler/","keywords":["sean spicer","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcdaf3ca3cb99dc8a/6988f7297cdbac5a31d5b7c4/sean-spicer-trump-white-house-press-secretary-crowd-size.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Abigail Abrams","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/abigail-abrams/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcdaf3ca3cb99dc8a/6988f7297cdbac5a31d5b7c4/sean-spicer-trump-white-house-press-secretary-crowd-size.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-ENTERTAINMENT-TELEVISION-EMMYS-SHOW","caption":"US-ENTERTAINMENT-TELEVISION-EMMYS-SHOW","creditText":"FREDERIC J. 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