By Peter W. Stevenson June 2 

It seems as though White House press secretary Sean Spicer is having trouble answering the media’s questions these days.

At Friday’s briefing, Spicer used the phrase “I don’t know” four times in response to reporters’ questions. Other times, he simply said he hasn’t discussed the topic at hand, or couldn’t answer the question. That’s an astonishing lack of clarity from a man paid specifically to answer questions on behalf of the president.

CLICK IMAGE ABOVE for direct link to WP story.

In the video above, you can see Spicer repeatedly say that he doesn’t have the requisite knowledge to answer questions about Trump’s policies. And these weren’t exactly “gotcha” questions:

Reporter: He was emphatic about getting out of the agreement. In the end, was this an easy decision, or was this a close decision?

Spicer: I honestly don’t know.

Wait a minute. The White House press secretary can’t honestly say whether the biggest policy announcement of the week was a close decision or not? Other questions that Spicer was unable to answer concerned topics such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s absence at Thursday’s speech in the Rose Garden, or whether Trump will seek to invoke executive privilege to prevent former FBI director James B. Comey from testifying in front of Congress.

Is Spicer out of the loop on each of the policies he was asked about? It’s possible. It’s also possible he just didn’t want to answer the questions frankly.

And it could simply be that Spicer is trying to avoid being undercut by his own boss — something that’s happened repeatedly in the early months of Trump’s presidency. Time after time, Trump’s team has made statements to the media that later appear ill-informed, or plain wrong.

We saw that dynamic play out when Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a deputy White House press secretary, took charge of several briefings a few weeks ago. Sanders gave reporters information about Trump’s decision to fire Comey that turned to be incorrect. The Fix’s Callum Borchers wrote about the disconnect at the time:

Trump tweeted that his spokespeople can’t be right all the time because he is “a very active president with lots of things happening.” That kind of explanation — mistakes are inevitable in fast-moving situations — might fly in some instances.

If a White House spokesman was providing updates on, say, a natural disaster, and an early statement later proved incorrect, journalists would likely understand. Details are often difficult to pin down in the midst of an emergency.

But the timing of Trump’s decision is something the Trump White House was (obviously) in a position to know from the outset. There is really no excuse for getting it wrong.

Perhaps that’s why Spicer avoided so many questions Friday — the president keeps giving interviews that later undercut the statements of his own spokesmen. Or perhaps Spicer really was out of the loop.