Thoughts on the next White House Press Secretary
Being White House Press Secretary is a brutal job. Imagine walking into a daily press briefing and having to defend President Donald Trump and his Administration. That’s one reason Sarah Huckabee Sanders is reportedly quitting. Matters have only gotten worse since April 19, 2018. On that day Trump legal defense team gained a new addition – the loathsome Rudy Giuliani. His real assignment is to channel Trump as his unrestrained, untelegenic and unintelligent media attack dog.
Giuliani is in love with the sound of his own voice. In the past, when Giuliani’s mental faculties were intact, this characteristic served him well. As the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York in the 1980’s, Giuliani used high-profile indictments and convictions to burnish his image with the press. As Mayor of New York City in the 1990s, Giuliani aggressively sought the limelight to take credit for the city’s turn-around. Then after the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Giuliani was a ubiquitous and calming presence on television.
Unfortunately, Giuliani is now a rambling shadow of his former self who pontificates on everything. His efforts to inoculate Trump from the Stormy Daniels hush money scandal have been comically inept. Giuliani’s handling of Special Counsel Robert’s Mueller investigation has consisted of taunts and misinformation. He prematurely revealed the release of American hostages in North Korea and declared that Kim Jong un begged Trump to hold the Summit after it got canceled. In an interview from Israel, Giuliani showed his misogynistic instincts by disparaging Daniels’ credibility due to her involvement in the porn industry. He also said First Lady Melania Trump believed her husband’s claims that there was no affair, which Melania’s spokesperson then refuted.
Besides a very mild rebuke at the beginning of Giuliani’s press tour, Trump has remained silent about his performance. Trump realizes Sarah Huckabee Sanders is either incapable of or unwilling to burn the miniscule remnants of credibility she has left to become his modern-day Joseph Goebbels. That was also the case for Sean Spicer before her and likely will be case for whoever comes after her. So, into the propaganda vacuum has strolled the odious Giuliani – the unofficial White House Press Secretary.
J.H. Norton is a communications professional, life-long Democrat, and married father of two boys living in Washington, D.C.