Sean Spicer’s controversial appearance during the Emmys sparks major backlash

| 9:14 pm EDT September 17, 2017
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Sean Spicer used his time as Donald Trump’s White House Press Secretary to constantly lie to the media and the public, and to regularly harass journalists who pointed out his lies. Now that he’s resigned in disgrace, one would logically expect him to disappear in shame for a long time. Instead he surfaced during the Emmys on Sunday night, positioned as a comedic conquering hero. Suffice it to say that the backlash came fast and furious.

Spicer (the real Spicer) appeared behind a podium during the Emmys broadcast, and facetiously announced that the crowd for the event was the largest in the history of the world. It was a clear attempt at poking fun at his own prior lies about Trump’s crowd size for his inauguration. The trouble: that wasn’t some kind of gaffe. It was an intentional flat out lie to the American public on behalf of someone representing the office of the President of the United States.

While the in-house audience at the Emmys seemed to be stunned at Sean Spicer’s surprise appearance, the reaction from those tweeting about the event was decidedly negative. Kal Penn from Designated Survivor summed it up this way: “Sean Spicer can normalize himself in good fun, but he still passionately advocated against human rights, health care, & American values.” Tommy Vietor from Pod Save America sarcastically replied “Sean Spicer sold his soul to work for Trump and repeatedly lied from the podium. Hilarious!” Other respondents were even less kind.

Sarah Lerner pointed out the hypocrisy involved: “Steve Bannon got a 60 Minutes feature & Sean Spicer got an Emmys cameo, but Hillary Clinton needs to shut up & go away? Mmkay.” Jeremy Constantinople noted the same thing: “Sean Spicer gets a recovery tour after lying to the public for months but the first woman nominee is supposed to go into hiding?”