On Monday, after The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump had revealed “highly” classified “code word information” to Russia’s foreign minister and its ambassador to the United States ― potentially jeopardizing an “intelligence-sharing arrangement” with a foreign ally ― Adrian Carrasquillo of BuzzFeed News added a dose of color about the unfolding chaos:
Carrasquillo went on to report that White House communications staffers “put the TV’s on super loud” to drown out the sounds of the unfolding argument. That’s big news, in that it’s one of the first times the Trump White House has demonstrated that they have protocols they’re capable of carrying out without pratfalling all over the room.
Of course, incensed shouting matches have been par for the course in the brief life of this administration. But if you’re keeping score at home, let’s remember who the players in this argument were: White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, communications director Mike Dubke, press secretary Sean Spicer and his deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Understandably, they were having a pretty bad day, but one had to wonder: What were they yelling at each other about? It’s not like declassifying intelligence to a pair of Russian subalterns was their idea.
But now, the day after, a new narrative is shaping up in the White House that might explain why Bannon and the top members of Trump’s P.R. team were at each other’s throats. That narrative? “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
As The New York Times’ Matthew Rosenberg and Eric Schmitt reported Tuesday morning, Trump’s trusted advisers are putting this incident down to the failings of the president’s communications team, even though this does not make any sense. Per the Times:
Before The Post’s article was published, its impending publication set off a mild panic among White House staff members, with the press secretary, Sean Spicer; the deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders; and the communications director, Mike Dubke, summoned to the Oval Office in the middle of the afternoon.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his advisors, was not in the meeting. But internally, Mr. Kushner criticized Mr. Spicer, who has been the target of his ire over bad publicity for the president since Mr. Trump fired the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, last week.
Ha. Well, OK, Jared Kushner. President Trump courted a thoroughly predictable tsunami of controversy for firing someone running an investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. elections ― with the stated reason for the firing being that he was running that investigation ― but the real villain here is Sean Spicer, for not being able to turn the consequences of that action, on which nobody adequately briefed him before it was undertaken, into a wave of good publicity. Spicer’s inadequacies are legion, but sometimes there’s just not enough lipstick for the pig. The Comey firing was one of those times.
But Kushner is getting his message out, apparently. Check out this section of Politico’s “Playbook,” which follows a comprehensive breakdown of all the reporting that emerged after the Post dropped its bombshell Monday evening:
A CHEAT SHEET FOR TRUMP ― WHAT WASHINGTON THINKS YOU NEED …
― NEW COMMUNICATORS: Forget Sean Spicer for a second. Keep him, ditch him ― whatever you want. Yes, the press secretary is an important public face of the administration. But even more than a new public face, what this White House needs is someone who understands what it means to communicate with Washington in mind. Trump needs someone who speaks the language of D.C. and Capitol Hill. Someone who is going to craft a strategy and message to bring elected officials on Trump’s side and someone who has credibility with the reporters who cover them.
If I have this right, Donald Trump’s problem is that he’s not “communicating with Washington in mind,” that he needs someone who “speaks the language of D.C. and Capitol Hill.” Messaging needs to be improved and credibility with reporters has to be restored.
Forgive me if I opt to speak the “language of English” and not the “language of D.C. and Capitol Hill,” but has anyone thought of simply telling the president to stop cocking things up all the time?
Give these a whirl: “Mr. Trump, it will look really bad if you pick this moment to fire James Comey.”
Another: “Hey, just a reminder, don’t share any highly classified material with the two Russian dudes who are waiting in your office.”
These are just a few ideas I pulled off the top of my head, and I’m sure they could stand to be massaged a bit. But I’m guessing that if you instill advice like this, Sean Spicer can face the press corps and say things like, “Well, we sure didn’t fire James Comey today” or “It was touch and go there for a while, but we’re happy to report that the American tradition of not sharing secrets with our Russian adversaries continues apace.”
Properly advising Trump to not do zany, stupid things may take a lot of work. He is impulsive, inexperienced, prone to running off at the mouth, unwilling to be briefed, and apt to perceive advice as a personal attack. He thought that being president was going to be an easy job. But this is where the breakdown is occurring in this White House ― advice before the fact. Were it better, there would not be a communications mess after the fact.
Besides, when you examine this White House’s crisis communications, you’ll notice that time and time again, the person undercutting the best efforts of the White House communications team is the president himself:
It’s worth it to go back to The Washington Post’s original story, just so we can remember why Trump shared this information with these Russian officials in the first place:
In his meeting with [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.
See, the problem here isn’t that Sean Spicer is failing to generate good publicity by speaking “the language of D.C. and Capitol Hill.” The problem is that the president is an insecure, status-obsessed dummy. Spicer’s only real mistake is that he hasn’t figured out that he needs to cut his losses and bail, especially if someone else is ready to be the next person to make this mistake.
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Jason Linkins edits “Eat The Press” for HuffPost and co-hosts the HuffPost Politics podcast “So, That Happened.” Subscribe here, and listen to the latest episode below.