Donald Trump vs. The Press: Senior White House Adviser Kellyanne Conway Demands Fair Shake From Press, Shades of Nixon [VIDEO]

UPDATE: 2 p.m. EST — Kellyanne Conway's remarks about alternative facts brought a swift response from Backstreet Boy Lance Bass:

Original story

Harking back to the Nixon administration, a defensive senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway hit the Sunday talk show circuit, complaining the press has not given President Donald Trump and his team a fair shake and suggesting reporters stop pointing out when administration statements clash with facts.

Conway, standing on the White House lawn, berated a pool reporter for mistakenly reporting Friday the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office when in reality it had just been moved to a different position. The mistaken report was later corrected but Conway said that wasn’t good enough.

“We have been treated unfairly,” Conway complained, deflecting questions about why White House spokesman Sean Spicer used his first appearance as press secretary to claim a record number of people had witnessed Trump’s inauguration when pictures of the mall clearly showed a bigger crowd at former President Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009.

Nielsen reported nearly 30.6 million people around the world witnessed the inauguration across 12 networks between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. EST, compared to 37.7 million for Obama and 41.8 million for former President Ronald Reagan in 1981, Variety reported.

“This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period — both in person and around the globe,” Spicer said in his first formal appearance as White House spokesman before reporters Saturday, calling it "deliberately false reporting." He then refused to take any questions.

“You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving, Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that,” Conway said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Former President Richard Nixon also vilified the press, with then-Vice President Spiro Agnew calling reporters “nattering nabobs of negativism” for their criticism of the administration. Trump, in his first news conference as president-elect, accused the press of being purveyors of “fake news.”

Conway also slammed demonstrations Saturday that drew hundreds of thousands of women fearful the new administration will try to erode hard-won rights.

In contrast, Trump tweeted early Sunday he recognized people’s right to protest.

But at the same time, Trump earlier reminded protesters he had defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Conway complained the Senate has confirmed just two of Trump’s 21 Cabinet nominees, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also making the Sunday talk show circuit, noted many of the nominees had yet to be fully vetted and said it is the Senate’s duty to make sure there are no conflicts of interest. Schumer borrowed some of Trump’s rhetoric, describing the nominees as a “swamp” of bankers and billionaires. During the campaign, Trump pledged to “drain the swamp” in Washington and his inaugural address promised to return power to the people.

Schumer also said he fears Trump’s populist rhetoric is a cover for a far-right turn given the leanings of his Cabinet nominees. He also said Democrats will fight any U.S. Supreme Court nomination out of the "mainstream."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told ABC’s “This Week” he plans to vote in favor of the nomination of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, saying he has had numerous conversations with the ExxonMobil CEO and is confident his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin will not endanger the United States.

At the same time, McCain called again for a select committee to investigate Russian interference in the election. He said the interference went far beyond “anything we had anticipated.”