Monday was the seventh straight day that Mr. Spicer, President Trump’s press secretary, declined to hold a televised White House press briefing,
an unusually long drought for someone whose role is traditionally to be the most visible face of a presidential administration.
In an email, Mr. Spicer said he had lived up to his pledge to hold briefings with reporters on a near-daily basis, “some on camera, some off.” He noted
that the White House had rolled out its revised executive order on immigration on Monday — a nod to a past practice in which the press secretary forwent an on-camera briefing on days featuring a major announcement.
When the Fox interviewer, Abby Huntsman, asked Mr. Spicer whom he feared more — the president
or the news media — Mr. Spicer, unsmiling, replied, “I don’t fear anybody.”
He added, “I don’t want to disappoint this president.”
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
“I’ve heard from several of you that we have gone above
and beyond allowing the press into events,” Mr. Spicer said, adding, “I think this president has been extremely transparent.”
Hours after the briefing, Mr. Spicer was approached by reporters on a driveway outside
the West Wing, where he acquiesced to answering a few questions on-camera.
Instead, Mr. Spicer — who since the inauguration had become a highly rated, if often-parodied, staple of daytime television — conducted
a question-and-answer session with no cameras allowed, over the objections of the White House Correspondents’ Association.