White House Watch: The Ringer

At the white-tie Gridiron Club dinner on March 4, diGenova was one of the event’s “ringers”—non-members who are brought in to supplement the singing sketches that are part of the 133-year-old dinner’s program. DiGenova, according to attendees at the dinner (where no recording is allowed), participated in several humorous songs, including one set that parodied the Trump administration in the style of the Marx Brothers. His role was as Groucho Marx playing Michael Wolff.

In one song, a reimagining of “The Laws of My Administration” from Duck Soup, diGenova as Groucho/Wolff sang:

I showered them with flattery, they’re easy to deceive.

They thought Trump had vouched for me, boy were they naïve.

They even found a couch for me, so thank you, Sloppy Steve!

Poor guy, they send him packing—on extended family leave.

In another sketch, diGenova played Jared Kushner, singing a version of the West Side Story tune “I Feel Pretty.”

I feel pretty,

Oh, so pretty,

I feel pretty and witty and bright!

And I pity

Any staff who isn’t me tonight.

Trump was at the dinner, held at the Renaissance Washington hotel, and gave a comedic speech. Presidents are traditionally invited and attend the Gridiron (though Trump declined last year and Vice President Mike Pence went in his stead). This year’s Gridiron was the first formal Washington dinner of its kind Trump has attended since taking office.

DiGenova is known around D.C. as something of warbler. A 1985 Washington Post profile of diGenova (who was then a U.S. attorney) and his wife and later law partner Victoria Toensing (then a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department) explained that as the son of a professional opera singer, diGenova’s “greatest love” is the theater. (He’s accomplished enough that he’s even performed the national anthem at a Redskins game.) “I was raised around what I call ‘circus’ people,” diGenova said in a 2013 interview with Washington Lawyer. “Our family lived music, art, and literature; it was wonderful.”

One More Thing—There’s one GOP lawyer and Washington fixture who won’t be joining Trump’s legal team: The Washington Post reports that Ted Olson had been approached by the president’s lawyers in “recent days.”

“But after reviewing the offer and weighing potential conflicts with his clients at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he is a partner, Olson is not planning to join Trump’s team, a top executive at the firm said Tuesday,” the Post reported.

Trump called Russian president Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to congratulate him on his Sunday reelection, the president said Tuesday. “We had a very good call,” Trump told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “We will probably be meeting in the not-too-distant future to discuss the arms race, which is getting out of control.”

The call, and Trump’s decision not to mention either the Kremlin’s alleged rigging of Russia’s election or their meddling in America’s, provoked a sharp reaction from some congressional foreign policy hawks. John McCain released a statement saying that “an American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections. And by doing so with Vladimir Putin, President Trump insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election to determine their country’s future.” Jeff Flake told my colleagues Haley Byrd and Jenna Lifhits that Trump calling Putin “would have been like me calling Fidel Castro” to congratulate the late Cuban dictator on his election.

Asked about McCain’s statement, press secretary Sarah Sanders responded that “we don’t get to dictate how other countries operate. What we do know is that Putin has been elected in their country, and that’s not something that we can dictate to them how they operate.”

But he Trump administration has not always been so reticent to criticize sham elections in other countries. Last summer, Sanders slammed Venezuelan President Maduro for rigging elections to consolidate his own power, and Trump declined a phone call with Maduro himself.

“Since the start of this administration, President Trump has asked that Maduro respect Venezuela’s constitution, hold free and fair elections, release political prisoners, cease all human rights violations, and stop oppressing Venezuela’s great people,” Sanders said in August. “President Trump will gladly speak with the leader of Venezuela as soon as democracy is restored in that country.”

Trump’s Putin call seems to have rankled some in the White House—enough for someone to leak to the Washington Post that the president ignored his own advisers’ national security briefing before the call, which contained in capital letters “DO NOT CONGRATULATE.”

Tweet of the Day

Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm employed by the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, came under fire this week following reports that they had surreptitiously harvested Facebook user data. Now it seems that Trump’s 2020 campaign team is breaking ties with CA as well, telling Politico they have “no existing contracts” with the firm and no plans to coordinate during the next cycle.

North Korea Watch—National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster attended a meeting this past weekend in San Francisco with his counterparts in the Japanese and South Korean governments.

It was the third such West Coast meeting between McMaster, Shotaro Yachi of Japan, and Chung Eui-yong of South Korea—the last one was in January—and the discussion touched on issues about joint military exercises as well as the possible meeting between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

At least one of the aides joining McMaster on the trip was Allison Hooker, a career Korean expert and State Department veteran on the National Security Council who also served in Obama’s White House.

Must-Read of the Day—My colleague John McCormack attended oral arguments at the United States Supreme Court for a case concerning a California law requiring pro-life pregnancy centers to also advertise government-funded abortions. Read all about it here.

Song of the Day—“Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More” by the Allman Brothers Band