Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ deputy resigns, joins the Democrats

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Even as Donald Trump’s illegitimate and failing White House has continued to bleed personnel and become a ghost town, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has dutifully stuck around. However, she just lost her top deputy, Raj Shah. Not only did he resign, he’s taken a new job with the Democrats.

It’s not a surprise that Raj Shah has left the building, as the signs of his impending departure have been publicly visible for some time. It is somewhat surprising that Shah has taken a job working for a Democratic lobbying firm, according to the New York Times. It’s not uncommon for a lobbying firm to hire one person from the other party. We suppose Shah has benefited from having only gone to the podium a small handful of times to tell lies on Trump’s behalf, meaning his reputation isn’t all that damaged, and he’s thus still employable. But this departure raises questions about whether Sarah Huckabee Sanders is about to depart as well.

Several months ago, CBS News reported that Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Raj Shah were both planning to resign around the end of 2018. Sanders loudly disputed this report, and for once, she turned out to be telling the truth. But if the original report was that Sanders and Shah were planning to resign together, and now Shah has indeed resigned just two weeks after the timeframe CBS originally reported, does this mean the original report about Sanders departing was true as well? Is she secretly on her way out?

In any case, Donald Trump’s White House is emptier than ever, and not just because he shut down the government. He keeps whining on Twitter about how he’s all alone, and that’s largely because his own people keep resigning in scandal, or being controversially fired, or merely abandoning his sinking ship. Worse, he can’t seem to replace most of the people who are heading for the exits.