May 11, 2017
BEING QBed BY GARY MARANGI:
Inside Trump's anger and impatience -- and his sudden decision to fire Comey (Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Sari Horwitz and Robert Costa, May 10, 2017, Washington Post)
Trump kept a close hold on the process. White House press secretary Sean Spicer and communications director Michael Dubke were brought into the Oval Office and informed of the Comey decision just an hour before the news was announced. Other staffers in the West Wing found out about the FBI director's firing when their cellphones buzzed with news alerts beginning around 5:40 p.m.The media explosion was immediate and the political backlash was swift, with criticism pouring in not only from Democrats, but also from some Republicans. Trump and some of his advisers did not fully anticipate the ferocious reaction -- in fact, some wrongly assumed many Democrats would support the move because they had been critical of Comey in the past -- and were unprepared to contain the fallout.When asked Tuesday night for an update on the unfolding situation, one top White House aide simply texted a reporter two fireworks emoji.
"I think the surprise of a great many in the White House was that as soon as this became a Trump decision, all of the Democrats who had long been calling for Comey's ouster decided that this was now an awful decision," Dubke said. "So there was a surprise at the politicization of Democrats on this so immediately and so universally."
Trump's team did not have a full-fledged communications strategy for how to announce and then explain the decision. As Trump, who had retired to the residence to eat dinner, sat in front of a television watching cable news coverage of Comey's firing, he noticed another flaw: Nobody was defending him.The president was irate, according to White House officials. Trump pinned much of the blame on Spicer and Dubke's communications operation, wondering how there could be so many press staffers yet such negative coverage on cable news -- although he, Priebus and others had afforded them almost no time to prepare."This is probably the most egregious example of press and communications incompetence since we've been here," one West Wing official said. "It was an absolute disaster. And the president watched it unfold firsthand. He could see it."Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said Trump bears some responsibility for the turmoil because he kept the decision secret from some key aides."You can't be the quarterback of the team if the rest of the team is not in the huddle," Gingrich said.
Posted by Orrin Judd at May 11, 2017 9:47 AM