Tag Archives: Sean Spicer

legal news

Trump now relying on others to prove it?

White House press flack Sean Spicer says Donald Trump is “confident” that Justice Department officials will prove what the president has asserted.

Which is that former President Barack Obama committed a crime by ordering a wiretap on Trump’s campaign offices in New York City.

The president made that scurrilous allegation in a tweet several days ago. He hasn’t produced a scintilla of evidence to back it up. DOJ is now looking for proof. Spicer says Justice will find it.

Here’s my question: If the president had the proof when he fired off that tweet, why didn’t he produce it at the time he made the accusation?

Let me think. Oh, I know! That’s because he didn’t have it! He doesn’t have it now! The Justice Department won’t find it, either.

This is yet another game of verbal gymnastics that Trump’s spokesman is playing with the media that Trump despises.

If the president had the goods he should have produced them long before now.

business news, national news, political news

‘Phony’ jobs numbers now become ‘real’

Donald John Trump is demonstrating yet again just why he makes me sick to my stomach.

The U.S. Labor Department today announced that 235,000 non-farm jobs were added to payrolls in February, the first full month of Trump’s presidency; the jobless rate declined to 4.7 percent.

Those are impressive figures. What does the president say?

He declares those numbers are “real” even though he said multiple times during his campaign for the presidency that the Labor Department was cooking the books during Barack Obama’s presidency. He called the job growth registered during President Obama’s time in office “fake”;  he said the numbers were phony; he said the “real jobless rate” was much greater than what the Labor Department was reporting.

As White House press secretary Sean Spicer said today, quoting the president: “They may have been phony in the past but they’re real now.”

Now they’re real?

Trump sickens me for many reasons. At many levels. You name it.

He lies, slings innuendo around, insults his foes, boasts openly about his own prowess.

The Trumpkins lap this crap up, giving this clown license to keep making patently, demonstrably untrue statements.

The job figures are impressive. The president should simply have acknowledged them as progress toward the nation’s continuing economic recovery.

But no-o-o-o! He had to remind millions of us why we detest him.

media news, national news, political news

Feuding in Trump White House? Go figure

No Drama Obama has given way to All Tumult Trump.

CNN is reporting that the president of the United States is unhappy with the performance of White House press secretary Sean Spicer. What’s more, there appears to be a turf war building within Donald J. Trump’s inner circle: The Reince Priebus wing vs. the Steve Bannon wing.

Who knew?

Does anyone really doubt any of this?

Trump himself has demonstrated an amazing capacity for stirring up controversy. He seems unable to control his own mouth, let alone anyone else’s.

This all occurs, of course, after Trump pledged to surround himself with the “smartest people” on Planet Earth.

The Priebus wing of the Trump team seems to be the more reasonable folks. Priebus is the former Republican National Committee chairman whom Trump hired as his chief of staff. Priebus is a party guy, well-connected to the GOP’s “establishment wing.” He’s always seemed reasonable to me … even if I have thought he was wrong.

Bannon? He’s of another stripe altogether. He was a flame-throwing editor of Breitbart.com, and a purveyor of white-nationalist rhetoric. Bannon strikes me as a dangerous individual who’s now on the “principals committee” of the National Security Council.

Ye, gads, man!

Trump administration officials dispute the CNN report about Trump’s supposed unhappiness with Spicer. Sure thing. Of course they would.

The rumors and innuendo persist. Ironic, yes? Trump won his party’s nomination largely on the basis of the innuendo he tossed around against his foes — and then he did the same thing to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the general election.

It’s coming full circle.

media news

Trump continues to play the media perfectly

Donald J. Trump has the media right where he wants them.

In his crosshairs. At the center of public policy debates.

Make no mistake, the president of the United States is demonstrating his amazing skill at playing the media like a cheap fiddle.

What has been fascinating to watch is the discussion over this weekend about the media reporting of inaugural crowd size and the attack-dog performance of press secretary Sean Spicer. He went right after the media in the White House press room. The media took the bait and have launched into an amazing discussion of what many reporters call “small things.”

Yes, the media keep insisting that Trump has lowered the level of discussion to issues that don’t matter — such as inaugural crowd size estimates. The media keep talking about it, however, as if it does matter.

How does the president benefit from all of this?

The Republican Party base that held Trump up while he insulted his way to the GOP nomination and then to the election hates the media’s guts. The base is Trump’s essential audience. He seems to not give a damn — no matter what he says — about representing the entire country. He’s still in campaign mode and he’s going to play to his base as long as is humanly possible.

The media are going to allow it as long as they keep tussling with the president over “small things.”

Meanwhile, many of the rest of out here in the vast stretches of this still-great nation are hoping Team Trump will develop some kind of working relationship with the media that cover it.

These first couple of days seem to portend a rocky ride.

Which might be just to Donald J. Trump’s liking.

media news

Recalling another conservative press flack with fondness

Take a look at this guy. His name was Tony Snow. He was a noted conservative columnist, TV news anchor and then a White House press secretary during the George W. Bush administration.

A response to an earlier piece I posted on this blog about the current press spokesman, Sean Spicer, came from a cousin of mine — a conservative as well — who remembered Snow and the “class” he brought to the White House job he held.

My family member’s remembrance spurred a memory of my own that I want to share here.

I met Tony at a National Conference of Editorial Writers conference in Phoenix. The year was 1994. We had a drink in the lounge at the hotel where all us ink-stained wretches were staying. Snow then was a syndicated columnist for the Detroit News. We chatted and shared a few memories about politicians we both knew. I regaled him with stories about the late U.S. Rep. Jack Brooks of Beaumont; Tony knew of him and his reputation as a partisan Democrat who pretty much hated Republicans.

Not long after that, Snow got a gig at the Fox News Channel that made him famous. He became host of “Fox News Sunday.”

I left Beaumont the year after meeting Tony and moved to Amarillo.

Snow then got an invitation to speak at the annual Amarillo Community Prayer Breakfast. I got wind of the invitation and got in touch with Snow. I invited him to visit us at the Globe-News, where I was working as editorial page editor.

Tony arrived and we got reacquainted. He told me he remembered our Phoenix meeting and then we chatted about current events and his assignment as “Fox News Sunday” anchor.

Then he told me something that gives Snow some relevance in the context of today’s political/media climate. He told us at the Globe-News that his best friend on the Fox News talk show was Juan Williams, a staunch liberal columnist who was a contributor to the Fox News Channel.

Tony said his goal every Sunday was to ensure that Williams and Brit Hume — another participant on the show’s weekly panel — got into an argument. He laughed heartily as he talked about how he would bait Williams and Hume into arguing over a policy disagreement.

I mention this because Snow’s broad disagreements with colleagues did not get in the way of their friendships. We hear too little of that kind of kinship these days. Adversaries become enemies, which is too bad.

Tony died of cancer in 2008 after he became press spokesman for President Bush.

Yes, I miss him, too.

media news

Sean Spicer: media puncher in chief

Sean Spicer sauntered into the White House press briefing room today and did something quite extraordinary.

The White House press secretary looked the media in the eye and echoed what the new president of the United States has said repeatedly: He called them dishonest.

Think about that. The fellow who will be the president’s spokesman, his point of contact with the White House press corps, took off his proverbial glove and slapped the media square in the face.

And over what? This is the best part.

He challenged the media’s reporting of the size of the crowd at Donald J. Trump’s inauguration. The crowd, he said, was bigger than the media reported. It rivaled the size of the crowd that gathered for Barack Obama’s first inaugural and was larger than President Obama’s second inaugural.

Spicer bitched about pictures he said misrepresented the size of the crowd.

Here we go, ladies and gentlemen. The president of the United States is continuing his campaign to discredit the media. He trotted out his spokesman to lash out at the press corps while he — Trump, that is — was accusing the media of being full of “dishonest people.”

It’s been said that people in power shouldn’t “punch down.” If you’re the president of the United States, you pick fights, say, with members of Congress over policy matters or you argue with heads of state of adversarial nations.

Arguing over crowd size? To be candid, a lot of Trump’s supporters think he’s right, that the media deserve to be taken down, that they are too big, too powerful, too smug, too elitist and, oh yes, too liberal.

Let’s all get ready, folks. There’s much more of this to come. Of that I am quite certain.

national news, political news, religious news

His majesty, the president-elect?

The Republican National Committee will have to explain itself with a good bit more precision.

The RNC put out a message that says the following: “Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King. We hope Americans celebrating Christmas today will enjoy a day of festivities and a renewed closeness with family and friends.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rnc-dismisses-controversy-over-christmas-press-release/ar-BBxyL5J?li=BBnb7Kz

The “new king” is, um, who … precisely? Would that be the president-elect, a guy named Donald J. Trump?

The RNC says oh, no. It’s merely referring to Jesus Christ, whose birth has been celebrated by Christians all over the world.

Perhaps I’m a little thick. I could swear as I read the statement that the RNC was making a direct reference to the new president.

RNC communications director Sean Spicer — who’s about to become the White House press flack — said this in a tweet: “Christ is the King. He was born today so we could be saved. Its sad & disappointing you are politicizing such a holy day.”

So help me, Sean, I would say that you folks — with this “new King” reference — are politicizing the day.