pointing to past reports that merkel was once surveilled by the u.s. intelligence community during the obama administration. >> as far as wiretapping, i guess, by, you know, this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps. >> reporter: the white house is digging in, even afterpress secretary sean spicer sparked a diplomatic uproar defending the president's comments. >> you also tend to overlook all the other sources, because i know you want to cherry-pick it. no, no, but you do. but where was your concern about "the new york times" reporting? >> reporter: to back up the president's wiretapping allegations, spicer cited an substantiated report from a fox news commentator. >> last on fox news on march 14th judge andrew napolitano said, three intelligence sources have informed fox news president obama went outside the chain of command, didn't you the cia, the nsa, the fbi, or the department of justice. he used gchq. what is that? the initials for the british intelligence spying agency. >> reporter: the british government was outraged.