Mercedes Schlapp would be a good choice to replace outgoing White House communications director, Hope Hicks.
Schlapp is smart, kind, and obviously retains Trump’s trust. In my view, that makes her very well-suited to building a more mutually constructive White House relationship with the media. Schlapp is currently serving as the White House’s director of strategic communications, but as the Washington Examiner’s Naomi Lim notes, Mercedes Schlapp’s husband, Matt Schlapp, told MSNBC on Thursday that his wife is “going to be very open to anything the president wants her to do.”
Matt Schlapp is close to Trump and heads up the American Conservative Union which is responsible for putting on the annual CPAC conference that serves as a sort-of Trump triumph. It figures that he would not have mentioned his wife’s interest in Hicks’ job unless he assumed Trump might be actively considering her for it.
But as I say, Mercedes Schlapp would be a good choice for the role.
Part of my rationale is personal here. I’ve been on Fox News with Mercedes Schlapp on a few occasions and each time she has been kind, honest, and intellectually vested. This bears consideration in that media green rooms can sometimes be citadels of egomania and talking point tedium.
More importantly, the White House needs to develop a more constructive relationship with the media.
On the White House side, the obvious imperative is to provide a more timely flow of positive stories on administration priorities. On the media side, the imperative is to gain greater access to administration officials and better scrutiny of the administration’s activities.
While these two interests are clearly not in alignment, both would be well-served by a more effective relationship between the two sides. Hope Hicks was rarely seen by the media and that damaged her effectiveness and the public’s interest in media access.
Mercedes Schlapp can do better for her boss and the American people.
