President-elect Donald Trump was right to slam an Indiana Steelworkers union president for criticizing him over comments made about keeping jobs at Carrier Corp. from going to Mexico, Sean Spicer said Thursday.
"He wants the truth," Spicer, the chief strategist and communications director of the Republican National Committee, told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-host Bill Hemmer.
"Here you have a guy that talked about Carrier and the importance of keeping jobs," Spicer said. "He picks up the phone. He closes a deal. You have a thousand people who will have blessed holiday season, not worried about jobs, spending time with family and friends knowing they have a job, good benefits. That should be something that is celebrated."
USWA Local 1999 President Chuck Jones told The Washington Post on Tuesday, even though Trump and Carrier's parent company, United Technologies Corp., said 1,100 jobs would be saved, 550 production jobs were still going to Mexico.
"He got up there — and, for whatever reason, lied his a-- off," Jones said of Trump.
Spicer told Fox News on Thursday that Jones fabricated "how the story went down for no reason."
"He should be grateful for Mr. Trump and Gov. [Mike] Pence's efforts to help save the jobs," Spicer said. "Instead, the guy whose job it was to be advocating on behalf of the workers picks a fight with the president-elect, who went out of his way to advocate and fight for a thousand people's jobs so that they could live next year and years after, knowing that they have got a good-paying job with good benefits."
Trump, Spicer said, "is never going to sit back and let someone take a shot falsely at him without responding."
Jones earlier Thursday told CNN's "New Day" program he believes Trump "overreacted" with his attacks against him and his union performance, and he stands behind what he has said.
Also, Spicer defended the Trump transition team's pace when appointing people to his cabinet and administration, saying Thursday the effort is "far outpacing anyone in modern history."
"He has over 10 picks for Cabinet-level people," Spicer said, and there are landing teams prepared to start work for the new administration from day one.
"I think frankly there might be a little bit of jealousy going on at the pace which this is happening from the Trump administration, not just number of people but highly qualified people filling these roles and making sure, they are already to get the transition done," Spicer said.
"Numbers don't lie. He is far ahead of where any modern president has ever been. That is something that should be more recognized as opposed to nitpicking at some lower level agency."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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