Washington DC - 27 February 2017
1. SOUNDBITE: (English) Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary:
"As you might already know the Department of Defense presented its preliminary plan to the White House today to defeat ISIS. This plan has been delivered by Secretary Mattis who is currently breaking the principals on the option presented today and seeking their input and feedback."
2. SOUNDBITE: (English) Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary:
"The New York Times published a story about what they called 'contacts' between members of the Trump campaign and Russian officials. The FBI deputy director was at a meeting here at the White House that morning. After the meeting concluded, he asked the chief of staff to stand back a second he wanted to tell him that the report in the New York Times was "bs." For viewers at home, I think we can pretty much figure out what that means. But I'll leave it at that. At that time the chief of staff said "thank you for sharing that with me, can we let other people know that's the story is not accurate?" Throughout the day they went back and forth to see what they thought was appropriate. Finally they came to the conclusion that they did not want to get into the process of knocking down every story that they had issues with."
3. SOUNDBITE: (English) Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary:
(Reporter question off camera): "You don't think there is something strange, or something odd about the White House press secretary getting the CIA director on the phone to knock down a story about an investigation?"
(Sean Spicer): "No. No. But you see, respectfully, you are using words like "knock down." There was a story in the newspaper, hold on, no, no. There were reporters coming to us saying there is a story out there, "what is your take on it?" And our answer was we don't believe it is accurate. We don't believe it's false. But obviously that's our take on it."
4. SOUNDBITE: (English) Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary:
(Reporter question off camera): "Do you now categorically deny there were no contacts between the Russians and anyone on the campaign?"
(Sean Spicer): "I guess my point is is that you've had the intelligence community look at Russia's involvement in the election. You've had the House and the Senate both do the same. And so what I am trying to ascertain is that at what point how many people have to say there is nothing there before you realize there is nothing there?"
