A week earlier, Spicer said Trump's tweet "speaks for itself" and declined to provide any further explanation.
But Monday, Spicer was open to providing an interpretation for Trump's tweet, saying the President told Spicer he was referring to means of surveillance beyond wiretapping in his tweets accusing Obama of doing just that.
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
But in each of the four tweets Trump fired off leveling the accusation, Trump referred specifically to phone tapping -- and only used quotation marks in two of those.How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017
"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory," Trump said in his first tweet.
"Is it legal for a sitting President to be 'wire tapping' a race for president?" he asked in the next.
Then, Trump tweeted that Obama "was tapping my phones in October" and had stooped low "to tapp (sic) my phones during the very sacred election process."
But Spicer was not the only White House official to provide an alternative definition of the word "wiretap" despite Trump's clear language.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway also addressed the wiretapping claims in an interview Sunday with the Bergen County Record, suggesting that other covert surveillance methods used by the CIA -- as revealed by Wikileaks last week -- could have been used in Trump Tower by the Obama administration.