White House adviser, whose job was to feed positive news about Donald Trump, has resigned

| 5:15 pm EDT August 24, 2017
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As things continue to unravel for Donald Trump, the mass exodus from the White House continues, and this time there will be no one around to try to drown it out. There’s a guy on Trump’s White House staff whose job is solely to feed positive news about Donald Trump, which is alarming in its own right. But of today that guy has resigned.

Just two weeks ago, Politico revealed that Donald Trump’s White House had been paying a staffer named Andy Hemming nearly six figures a year simply to “spot and distribute positive stories from the mainstream media” (link). That meant his job was to take the small handful of positive coverage that Trump has been getting, and push those articles on reporters at other news outlets, as a way of saying ‘we wish you’d write more stories like these.’ While it’s common for politicians and administrations to have “rapid response” staffers, this is not how rapid response is supposed to work. But now it’s a moot point, because Hemming is a goner.

It’s unclear precisely why Andy Hemming has resigned today. His departure is being officially classified as “mutually agreed upon” (link), but when White House staffers leave, it’s nearly always listed as a mutual decision and a resignation, even if they were forced out or fired or resigned in disgust. Is Hemming’s departure a result of the recent controversy surrounding the nature of his job? Was he simply tired of having to push propaganda on reporters about a failing and embarrassing president?

In any case today’s departure of Andy Hemming adds him to a lengthy list of people who have bailed on Donald Trump’s White House over the past month. That list includes Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, Anthony Scaramucci, Steve Bannon, and Ezra Cohen-Watnick among others. Additionally, dozens of members of Trump’s advisory councils have resigned in protest of Trump’s behavior.