Chap. 28: Taking Back Trump's America Serialization

A White House Confederacy of Media Dunces

Enjoy the read! The entire book is available on Amazon.

If you aren’t on TV, you can’t be in this administration.

President Donald John Trump, Oval Office, June 22^nd, 2020

[Chief of Staff Mark]Meadows get slaughtered on CNN by Jake Tapper. Marc Short and four other members of Vice Presidents Pence’s staff get COVID. This couldn't happen at a worse time as it emphasizes the coronavirus theme and how we have mishandled it even as it threatens to take Pence off the campaign trail

.... Only [National Security Advisor Robert] O'Brien on Face the Nation has a good [outing]  No money [left] for get out the vote. No money for advertising.

No money for lawyers to contest what is likely to be a contested election.

Navarro Journal Entry, October 24, 2020

To dominate the Daily News Cycle, any presidential administration has at its disposal at least four distinct pools of talent.

• First and foremost, there is the White House Press Secretary;

• Second in importance and potential impact is the White House Chief of Staff;

• Within the perimeter of the White House, there should also be key senior officials ready, willing, and able to serve as TV surrogates; and

• Fourth, there should likewise be a very deep bench of media-hardened and well-seasoned Cabinet Secretaries.

A Parade of Mediocre Press Secretaries

Like an orchestra conductor, the White House Press Secretary should lead on a daily basis a beautiful symphony of pro-administration talking points designed to define, shape, and ultimately dominate the Daily News Cycle. To pull off such a feat, however, any Press Secretary must possess a keen intellect, be a quick study, have the ability to equally quickly throw counter punches, and do all of this in a witty and urbane fashion.

Press Secretaries who fit this description historically include the truly debonair Pierre Salinger for John F. Kennedy; the wise-as-an owl Bill Moyers for Lyndon Johnson; the straight- and plain- speaking James Brady for Ronald Reagan; the Aaron Sorkin inspiration Dee Dee Myers and Q- factor off the charts George Stephanopoulos for Bill Clinton; and the elegant street fighter Dana Perino and erudite streetfighter Ari Fleischer for George W. Bush.

Compare any one of these historical figures with Trump’s Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham, and Kayleigh McEnany; and none ever completely measured up.

Spicer was a hot head on a cool medium with all the pugnaciousness of his Boss and none of the Trump charm.

Spicey literally blew it on Day One of the administration with his hyperbolic over-estimate of the Trump Inauguration Day crowd. Melissa McCarthy would stick both a fork and a knife into Spicey the minute she played Sean androgynously on “Saturday Night Live.”

Spicer would last just a 211 days – a New York minute by Press Secretary standards.

By sharp contrast, Sarah Sanders, the second Trump Press Secretary, would endure for almost two years. Ironically, Sanders had virtually no ability to counter-punch when Never-Trump media emissaries like CNN’s Jim Acosta and Kaitlan Collins or ABC’s Jonathan Karl would throw repeated Leftist hooks at her glass jaw. I say “ironically” because Sanders worked for the greatest counterpuncher in presidential history in Donald Trump.

Trump’s third White House Press Secretary, Stephanie Grisham, would go down in history as the only Press Secretary to never hold a regular White House news briefing – this over the course of her nine months in office. “You can’t win the news cycle if you won’t play,” might be the definitive gambler’s slogan here for Grisham. But nobody – including the Boss – ever wanted to gamble on putting Stephanie on the podium.

As for the Trump White House cleanup hitter, Kayleigh McEnany, she never had the gravitas to make any of her talking points stick – and talking points was all she really had when she went to the podium. So when Kayleigh got hit with a tough question, she was often like a deer in the headlights.

Let me drill down just a minute on that gravitas problem: You take a Bill Moyers or Ari Fleischer or Dana Perino, and they clearly had both the intellect and training to understand the nuances of the policies they might be sent out to the podium to defend. Absent those qualities, any Press Secretary is going to get eaten alive.