Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday that the storm over President Donald Trump's wiretap claims is nothing more than "an immense waste of finger movement."
"A waste of breath for everybody wasting time," Fleischer, who served former President George W. Bush, told Brooke Baldwin on CNN. "Put it on the side.
"It's unfortunate it happened, but people are much more focused on what's going to happen with the economy, the healthcare bill.
"I get it: People have to be accounted for what they tweeted," he said. "He went too far."
Trump doubled down on the wiretap claims on Friday, even after the British government denied a Fox News report that its spy agency has been enlisted in the alleged tapping by the Obama administration.
"As far as wiretapping, I guess, by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps," Trump said while pointing to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
In 2013, Merkel learned of spy efforts by the National Security Agency on European allies through leaks of stolen classified information by former contractor Edward Snowden.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters after the news conference on Friday: "I don't think we regret anything."
"Sean's job is to carry the president's words, so unless the president says 'I made a mistake,' Sean must do what the president asks him to do," Fleischer told Baldwin. "That's his job."
He said that he was never "put in similar situations like this" under Bush.
"Donald Trump is unique. It's one of his strengths — and one of his weaknesses.
"If America didn't want somebody who did these kinds of things, they would have elected somebody else.
"But they wanted to break things and improve the economy," he said. "That was the focus of the election."
Fleischer noted that former President Barack Obama never apologized for his false claims about the Affordable Care Act.
"He was wrong," he said. "Same thing with Donald Trump, but there are so many bigger fish to fry."
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