OK, then help me here. First, we can answer the question asshole Todd was asking that Conway wouldn't, or couldn't.
Why?
Why did Spicer make three demonstrably false statements at his first news conference, attack the very group of people he is expected and paid, by me, to deal with on a daily basis, and then refuse to answer questions?
It is a fair question.
And then, tell me just what was admirable about Conway's performance today? I don't care if Todd is an asshole. She dodged, she denied, she deflected, and she damn near came to tears. What part of it was professional? Is that the type of performance we are to expect in the future? Would she work for you in this capacity?
Here you go:
Good evening. Thank you guys for coming. I know our
first official press briefing is going to be on Monday, but I wanted to give you a few updates on the President's activities. But before I get to the news of the day, I think I'd like to discuss a little bit of the coverage of the last 24 hours.
Yesterday, at a time when our nation and the world was watching the peaceful transition of power and, as the President said, the transition and the balance of power from Washington to the citizens of the United States, some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting. For all the talk about the proper use of Twitter, two instances yesterday stand out.
One was a particular egregious example in which
a reporter falsely tweeted out that the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office. After it was pointed out that this was just plain wrong, the reporter casually reported and tweeted out and tried to claim that a Secret Service agent must have just been standing in front of it. This was irresponsible and reckless.
Secondly, photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize the enormous support that had gathered on the National Mall. This was the first time in our nation's history that floor coverings have been used to protect the grass on the Mall. That had the effect of highlighting any areas where people were not standing, while in years past the grass eliminated this visual. This was also the first time that fencing and magnetometers went as far back on the Mall, preventing hundreds of thousands of people from being able to access the Mall as quickly as they had in inaugurations past.
Inaccurate numbers involving crowd size were also tweeted.
No one had numbers, because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any out. By the way, this applies to any attempts to try to count the number of protestors today in the same fashion.
To your first question: It was NOT a press briefing. It was for information out flow. That is common.
He pointed out inaccurate (lies) by the press. For example, pointing out it appears Obama had more people on the Mall at his inauguration is stating an observation. Claiming there were more is not verifiable. See the difference?
As I have stated earlier here, Conway used Todd to show the level of bias in media. Todd's question was biased and he furthered that position by laughing and being confrontational. He could have simply rephrased his question less biasedly and gotten a complete answer.