What will new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci do to shake things up in the West Wing? Let’s go to the tape, specifically to Fox News Sunday, where Scaramucci spoke extensively with host Chris Wallace about his plans. Scaramucci listed (in his discursive manner) three actions he and his team would take to bridge what described as a “disconnect” between how the White House views President Donald Trump’s job performance and how the press report it to the public. Here they are:
1) Scaramucci told Wallace he wants to “hit a cultural reset button” with the staff.
“I would like to reset the culture inside the comms department so that people recognize that I’m actually there to serve them and they’re going to be working with me, not for me. That’s a very big distinction,” he said. “And that all of us are there to serve the president of United States and his agenda.”
2) Stopping the leaks. This is an issue long perceived by President Trump and his senior aides as the source of many of the administration’s problems. “I know that it’s Washington, so it’s going to be impossible to stop all of them, but I think what’s going on right now is a high level of unprofessionalism and it’s not serving the president,” Scaramucci said. “I am a businessperson and so I will take dramatic action to stop those leaks.”
What kind of dramatic action? Wallace pressed. Scaramucci said, at least within the communications office, he’d be willing to “pare down” the staff if leaking doesn’t stop.
3) “And the third thing is, I’ll be traveling with the president this week and we’re going to focus and refine the messaging from the White House. He’s one of the most effective communicators that’s ever been born and we’re going to make sure that we get that message out directly to the American people and I think that albatross spread, the gap between how certain people think of him and how I see him’or say like someone like Ivanka sees him—that will start to narrow soon.”
To recap: How will Scaramucci change the White House’s communications strategy? Reset the office culture, stop leaks, and get the president’s message directly to the people. Translation: Nothing, fundamentally, will change.
It’s not clear what “resetting the culture” actually means, and talk of doing so sounds just like that, talk. And what’s the cultural problem, anyway? Will corporate-ese like “you work with me, not for me” do the trick? Everyone I’ve ever spoken with on the White House communications team recognizes that it’s President Trump they work for. The truth is it’s the president himself who is part of the cultural problem, since any effort to organize or focus communications strategy is inevitably upended by Trump’s eagerness to change the subject with a tweet or an interview.
As for the other stuff, we’ve heard these songs before. Sean Spicer, the outgoing press secretary and on-again, off-again communications director, was supposedly getting tough on comms staff leaks way back in February by instituting “random phone checks.” (The issue with White House leaks is that they mostly come from non-communications staff.) And the White House has been talking about getting Trump’s message “directly to the American people” since Spicer’s first statement as press secretary on January 21.
So what is the Scaramucci hire really about? Chief of staff Reince Priebus says things are “all good here”—despite reports (and a non-denial by Priebus) that he opposed hiring Scaramucci. In the Friday night press release officially announcing the hire, the White House stated Scaramucci will “report directly to the president”—not to Priebus. And it’s not clear from Scaramucci’s threat about continued leaks whether Priebus will have any say or authority on firings on the West Wing communications staff.
If the president intended to force Priebus out the door, it would fit with Trump’s M.O. to shy away from directly firing people who work for him. His comments about Jeff Sessions to the New York Times were a loud signal for the attorney general to hit the bricks. Sessions did not take the hint, at least not yet. Will Priebus?
White House Signals Support for Russia Sanctions Bill
President Trump will sign a sanctions bill targeting Iran, Russia, and North Korea when it passes Congress, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Sunday.
“The administration is supportive of being tough on Russia, particularly in putting these sanctions into place,” Sanders told George Stephanopoulos on ABC News’s This Week.
The White House had opposed a previous version of the sanctions, which legislative affairs director Marc Short had argued set an “unusual precedent” of delegating foreign policy to Congress without waivers that have been part of sanctions bills in the past.
“The original piece of legislation was poorly written, but we were able to work with the House and the Senate,” Sanders said. “And we support where the legislation is now, and will continue to work with the House and Senate to put those tough sanctions in place on Russia until the situation with Ukraine is fully resolved.”
House Republicans said Saturday that the sanctions bill, which has stalled for weeks in the House of Representatives, is moving forward again.”
The truth is, as the New York Times reported, the White House has been hemmed in by the broad consensus in Congress, which was solidified in a weekend agreement among leading lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol and the aisle. Earlier iterations of the legislation, which focused only on Syria and Iran, passed easily in both the House and the Senate last month. Adding sanctions on North Korea slowed the bill’s momentum, but lawmakers say they no longer present a problem.
“Earlier this year, the House passed sanctions on North Korea by a vote of 419-1,” House majority leader Kevin McCarthy and Foreign Affairs committee chairman Ed Royce said in a joint statement. “Several weeks ago, the Senate passed sanctions legislation on Iran and Russia. Following that vote, the House worked diligently with our colleagues in the Senate to strengthen the bill with the inclusion of the House-passed sanctions that that target the Kim regime’s ballistic missile program, which could soon put American cities within range of nuclear attack.”
The House is expected to vote on the bill Tuesday.
North Korea Travel Ban Takes Effect
The Trump administration will begin blocking American travel to North Korea, the State Department announced Friday.
“The safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas is one of our highest priorities,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. “Due to mounting concerns of the serious risk of arrest and long-term detention under North Korea’s system of law enforcement, the Secretary has authorized a Geographical Travel Restriction on all U.S. citizen nationals’ use of a passport to travel in, through, or to North Korea.”
The government has long recommended against citizens traveling to the totalitarian state. But the death of Otto Warmbier last month prompted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to authorize blocking travel altogether. Warmbier, an American college student, died from a brain injury sustained in prison shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea in March 2016.
About 800 Americans currently travel to North Korea annually.
Nauert said the change would be published in the Federal Register next week and go into effect 30 days later.
