What was it like for Sean Spicer to be President Donald Trump’s press secretary? How did he feel conducting his first press conference, and what was his reaction to seeing Melissa McCarthy impersonate him on Saturday Night Live? In his first book, The Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President (Regnery, July), Spicer addresses all this and much more. Notes Spicer, “I’ve been traveling the country doing speaking engagements for six months, and the book will answer a lot of the questions that people have been asking me. It’s an inside look at who I am as a person, how I got where I am, and how a lot of those big defining moments really felt.”
The Washington insider didn’t know how difficult it would be to write a book, particularly since he was writing about himself. “A lot of folks who’d done books before said, ‘This is a lot of work,’ and they were right. Even though it’s your life, you need to go back and look at accounts of what happened, interview people and ask, ‘Do you recall this situation occurring this way? What was your understanding of how this went down?’ I went back and read my own transcripts of briefings and stories that had come out to try to accurately represent what was being said at certain instances and what had actually happened.”
Asked how the president might react to his book, Spicer says, “I think he’ll like it. I’ve talked to him about it, [and] he’s been very supportive.”
The former press secretary notes about his writing routine: “Some days I’m in the groove for hours on end; other days I can procrastinate with the best of them, and I have to fight to stay focused.”
As to how he thinks his book will be received, Spicer says, “I think most people probably have a very one-dimensional image of who I am from the podium or from some of the Saturday Night Live skits. I hope the book gives them a much more three-dimensional image of who I am as a person. I also hope readers will get a little bit of understanding as to why I made some of the decisions that I did and how I’ve grown as a person. Writing this was an unbelievable opportunity to reflect on my life and some of the milestones that occurred, what they meant, and what lessons I learned from them.”
