Replacing 45-year-old White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer with 34-year-old Sarah Huckabee Sanders, 71-year-old President Donald Trump finally had enough with a horrific communication strategy plaguing his presidency. With abysmal approval ratings averaging under 40%, Trump had to do something, noting that, with the best of intentions, Spicer dug his White House into a deep hole. Often combative with his daily press briefings, Spicer showed he was in over-his-head trying to get the White House message out to the press. Spicer, former press secretary for White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus when he ran the Republican National Committee, got mired in counter-productive spats with the White House press. Once played by Melissa McCarthy on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live,” Spicer couldn’t neutralize the Washington press corps’s vicious attacks on Trump.
Changing Spicer for Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump offered White House Communication Director to 54-year-old Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci. Scaramucci only recently was cleared of a CNN story in which he was named as having Kremilin contacts. CNN fired three journalists June 26 for validating a story Trump called “fake news.” CNN retracted the Scaramucci story offering an apology for its editors running with a story that turned out blatantly false. Running the White House communication office, Scarmucci can help Trump get out a more coherent message. Since taking office Jan. 20, the White House has been blindsided by a determined Democrat and media strategy to discredit Trump. Spicer couldn’t reverse the avalanche of bad publicity stemming from Hillary’s campaign tying Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
When Trump tweeted March 4 that former President Barack Obama had his wires tapped, Democratic and media spin machine demanded proof. Whether symbolic or not, it’s now known that former National Security Advisor Susan Rice and, most likely, Atty. Gen. Loretta with help from FBI Director James Comey, unmasked “incidental data collection” and sought warrants from the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court [FISA] to wiretap or otherwise collect data on Trump campaign officials. Yet Democrats and the media spent the 24/7 news cycle refuting Trump’s claims that his wires were tapped. Surveillance of Trump campaign officials looks now looks like it had clearance from the highest levels of the U.S. government, most likely authorized by former President Barack Obama. Instead of pushing back on unlawful surveillance, the Trump White House showed incredible passivity.
Putting Scramucci in charge of the White House should help frame a more coherent message, especially when it comes to the ongoing FBI investigation and alleged ties to the Kremlin. Finding out July 9 that Donald Trump Jr., former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner met with a Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya had the media in a feeding frenzy proving the murky link between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. When the New York Times reported the story July 9, they insisted Veselnitskaya worked for the Kremlin, something flatly rejected by Kremlin officials. Instead of pushing back, the White House communication office did almost nothing, adding to the bogus story. Spicer’s response was not to put out the White House message but to defend against various media attacks linking the Trump campaign to the Kremlin.
Story after story, the White House communication let Democrats and the media drive the media conversation. When the media touted lousy approval ratings, the White House didn’t challenge the narrative, including citing consistently favorable Rasmussen polls. No, the Spicer communication team only reacted to bad news, not pushing back with the White House agenda. Putting Scaramucci in charge of the White House Communication team, Trump improves his chances of changing the Democrat and media narrative. Spicer was always on the defensive, reacting helplessly to the endless barrage of negative news stories, driving Trump’s approval ratings into the tank. “I will cherich and hope to do my very, very best every single day . . “ said Scaramucci, promising things will be different under his watch. Whether ScarAmucci understands the ins-and-outs of the communication game is anyone’s guess.
Giving Spicer his walking papers, Trump passed the baton to 34-year-old Sarah Huckabee Sanders, someone fiercely loyal but over-her-head, especially when it comes to complicated domestic and foreign policy. Huckabee-Sanders Achilles Heel involves her lack of experience in the intricacies of foreign and domestic policy. While she’s expected to have less stormy relations with the White House press corps, she could find herself in deep water discussing complex matters, especially over the ongoing Russian investigation. With Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions caught up in “masking” incidental data collection, he’s going to be hard-pressed keeping his job with the latest Washington Post bombshell about talking to Russian Amb. Sergei Kislyak on substantive campaign issues. Trump already expressed his displeasure with Sessions recusing himself in the Russian probe, the Post’s new report could force his resignation.
