Press Secretary Sean Spicer has taken the brunt of Trump’s frustrations. Supposedly, the President “watches his daily briefings like SportsCenter, barking critiques of Spicer’s performances at his television.”
Monday’s Press briefing was held off-camera, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s insulting reason: “Sean got fatter.”
“ . . . White House press secretary, Sean Spicer’s job is to effectively communicate with the White House press corp, a responsibility that might come as a surprise to anyone who has heard him speak. Among Spicer’s greatest hits since landing the West Wing gig are the time he said that ‘even Hitler’ wasn’t as bad as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, because he ‘didn’t sink to using chemical weapons,’ a gaffe Spicer topped off by referring to concentrations camps as ‘Holocaust centers’; the briefing in which he claimed that Mike Flynn was merely a ‘volunteer’ for the Trump campaign and that the hugely powerful Paul Manafort had served a limited role; and the time he hid ‘among’ some bushes before coming out to begrudgingly answer some questions about the abrupt firing of F.B.I. Director James Comey.
“To be fair, not all of Spicer’s worst moments have been his fault; some of them could be blamed on the fact that he works for a guy with the attention span of a gnat on speed, who cares more about looking all-powerful than embarrassing his communications team. It’s hard, after all, to stick to one’s talking points when serving a president who doesn’t hesitate to admit, on national television, that he fired the director of the F.B.I. because he was investigating ‘this Russia thing.’ “
Vanity Fair's Bess Levin concludes that. . .
“White House staffers are apparently wise to the difficulties of appeasing a notoriously fickle president, who has repeatedly claimed he is his own best spokesperson. The Washington Post reports that the aides have “considered deploying a rotating cast of briefers, in part to prevent the president, who has a short attention span, from growing bored or angry with his press secretary.” Distracting the president’s febrile mind, it seems, is a very real concern inside his West Wing. As Politico notes, Spicer and Sanders have “increasingly [been] conducting gaggles with reporters that include no cameras and no audio.” Perhaps that’s less about evading the American people than it is trying to stay out of Donald Trump’s cross-hairs.”
The debasement of the press secretary will continue until Trump’s morale improves.
By Bess Levin
