Sean Spicer faces career-defining moment

Press secretary Sean Spicer will meet the White House press corps again at 1:30 p.m. Monday.

What will the correspondents ask? What will Spicer say? Will people believe him?

Monday could be a career-defining moment for Spicer, a Washington veteran with decades of public relations experience.

Reporters were astonished on Saturday when Spicer came to the briefing room and read an angry statement about “deliberately false reporting,” claiming the press downplayed the crowd size that witnessed the new President’s inauguration.

Related: White House press secretary attacks media for accurately reporting inauguration crowds

“I’ve known Sean Spicer since he was the press aide to the House Budget Committee. I don’t know this Sean Spicer,” New York Times reporter Jonathan Weisman tweeted.

MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski likened it to a “hostage video,” suggesting that President Trump forced Spicer to do it. “That was pathetic. Embarrassing. Bad. Just bad.”

At least five of the things Spicer said in his five-minute speech were not true. He did not take questions in the briefing room, and he declined an interview request afterward.

It was “absolutely surprising and stunning,” Reuters reporter Jeff Mason, the president of the White House Correspondents Association, said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

Monday was always expected to be Spicer’s first on-camera briefing. The fallout from Saturday’s false statements raises the stakes considerably.

Bush administration press secretary Ari Fleischer said he’s concerned. Appearing on CBS on Monday morning, Fleischer advised Spicer to “cool the confrontation down.”

According to a longtime Trump aide, however, the new administration feels that it is already under siege from unfair reporters.

Trump officials, on behalf of their boss, are “planting a flag, saying they’re not going to tolerate this,” the aide said.

Trump himself spoke about his “running war with the media” on Saturday.

Spicer’s role is incredibly complicated because he is a liaison between the media and the president.

Earlier this month, Spicer spoke with former President Obama senior advisor David Axelrod about communications strategy, and he said “the one thing, whether you’re Republican or Democrat or independent, is that you have your integrity.”

“I have never lied,” he said, adding, “If you lose the respect and trust of the press corps you’ve got nothing.”