April Ryan Hits Back After Sean Spicer Says She and Other Reporters Are ‘Interested in Personal Fame’
Earlier this week, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and American Urban Radio Networks White House correspondent April Ryan got into a contentious back-and-forth that culminated in Huckabee Sanders saying, “You actually don’t know much about me in terms of what I feel and what I don’t. I think we’re done.”
Ryan subsequently expressed her surprise that “she took this personally.”
This morning former Press Secretary Sean Spicer was on Fox & Friends and the hosts showed him that exchange, as well as Ryan’s follow-up.
Spicer said both he and his successor have shown Ryan “a ton of respect,” saying when he started out he “increased the number of journalists that I called on––going to the back of the room, going to niche publications, going to ethnic publications, because I believe that it was important for the American people through the briefing to hear more journalists ask questions from a different background that represented different constituencies.”
He went back to Ryan to ask “why can’t she just ask a straightforward question,” saying that her and other reporters “that because of the attention the briefing gets now have gotten newfound notoriety.”
“Suddenly after April engaged in a bunch of back and forth, she gets a CNN contract,” Spicer continued, “as have many other reporters who have created sort of YouTube viral moments, not because of the content of their reporting, but because they became some kind of sensation through a back-and-forth. What that tells me is they’re more interested in personal fame.”
After Spicer’s comments this morning, Ryan fired back on Twitter:
Wow! Wow! https://t.co/8ITPmOU2ke
— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) May 5, 2018
Umm I think @seanspicer has created more viral moments in that briefing room than anyone. Sean just stop. Your book is coming out in June. Great way to push it! https://t.co/NTkFhLXjtl
— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) May 5, 2018
Why does @seanspicer harp on my work @CNN so much? Lol I am a reporter who does her job well that is why I am @CNN! What about you @seanspicer?
— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) May 5, 2018
Shut the fuck up @seanspicer. She’s famous after decades of hard work and because of the terrible way you and Sarah have treated her. https://t.co/KMMxcAi2YE
— Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) May 5, 2018
Thank you @kathygriffin https://t.co/NdkOarOzQS
— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) May 5, 2018
Exactly and we worked together too on another network! This man has selective memory. https://t.co/0vNUC29DA5
— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) May 5, 2018
Watch above, via Fox News.
[image via screengrab]
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