There are a lot of things that are out in Washington DC right now. Some folks are out of a job, another is out of the bushes. There are some that are out of their minds because there is so much work in trying to make sense of the current circus. And there is a guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue who is running out of time. As The Donald Turns present “Out.”
- The White House is “out” of answers when it comes to why FBI director James Comey was fired. Today, it was said that the president had lost faith in him, and Trump himself said he was not doing a good job. Ironically, at the press briefing seven days ago, Sparkle Pony Spicer said the President has “Great confidence in Director Comey.” Oooops. That went “out” the window quickly.
- Today, White House backup catcher Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Donald had considered firing Comey from the beginning of his administration on January 20th. Wait…which is it? He was going to be fired four months ago? Or we had faith in him last Wednesday? Sanders said Comey “committed atrocities” as FBI Director. Atrocities? We bomb people for atrocities. Is Comey in trouble now that he is “out” of the administration?
- Kellyanne Conway, (yes they dragged her “out” from hiding for press purposes, and because her absence was mocked on Saturday Night Live last weekend), said it goes back to last year. In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo Wednesday, Conway said Comey stepped “out of line” when he went around the chain of command with his public statements about the Hillary/email investigation. Yet it was Donald’s people that hated then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and applauded Comey for being strong. Of course CNN had tape ready, showing Donald on the campaign trail, applauding the efforts to squash Hillary. Conway concluded by saying Donald was doing his job and if more people, like the media, did their jobs instead of complaining, the country would be better off. Conway was close to “out of her mind,” so the interview ended.
- So where was Sparkle Pony? Fortunately for him, he was “out” on military reserve duty today. Last night he was “outside.” A lot. The White House, in its complete bungling of the Comey firing, had no statement ready to go to the media. Spicer cobbled one together, but the emails were not working, so he ended up standing in the doorway of the press office around 5:40 p.m. and shouting a statement to reporters who happened to be nearby. He then vanished, with his staff locking the door leading to his office. Spicer went out on the grounds to make a statement to Fox Business. He soon realized that to get back to his office he would have to go through a swarm of reporters. So he went IN…to the bushes….to hide between two larges shrubs. After he spent several minutes hiding in the bushes, an executive assistant in the press office, emerged and told reporters that Spicer would answer some questions, as long as he was not filmed doing so. Spicer then emerged. ‘Just turn the lights off. Turn the lights off,’ he ordered. … Spicer got his wish and was soon standing in near darkness between two tall hedges, with more than a dozen reporters closely gathered around him. Military reserve duty must be such a welcomed relief.
- So the president, a Russian and Henry Kissinger walk into a room. There is no punchline. This was today’s one scheduled activity for the administration. A meeting between Donald and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was scheduled long before Tuesday night’s debacle. Still, the optics could not be worse. You fire the guy who is leading the investigation into your ties with Russia, and then you meet with their foreign minister the next day. What could be worse? Seriously? This is the Trump Administration. The door is wide open for them to be “out of their league.”. Into the meeting walked Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak…the very one who is suspected of being a Russian spy and is at the center of the Michael Flynn and Carter Page investigations. So in the midst of having the media compare Trump to Richard Nixon, for firing the lead investigator, what else could happen? Funny you should ask…the White House doorbell rings (in theory), and in comes Nixon’s former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger!!! The staff at As The Donald Turns is creative, but man we could not make this stuff up. The US media was “shut out” of the meeting with the Russians but the Russian media was allowed in.
- To add to what is now one of the top sitcoms on TV, we’ll need to hear from someone else tangled in this web. So the media found Vladimir Putin, minutes before he was to take the ice in a hockey match. I swear, we are serious. Putin was asked for his take on the chaos of the last 24 hours. “Your question looks very funny for me,” Putin said through his interpreter. “You see I am going to play hockey, with the hockey fans, and I invite you to do the same.” He then went and played hockey and everyone avoided hitting him so as not to be executed later.
- We leave this episode with a story not about being “out and about” with Russians, but one of being “out of touch.” Back in February, Donald held a ceremony with the heads of many black colleges. He pledged his support for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, (HBCU’s). They all posed in the Oval Office and there were lots of smiles. Friday, Donald commented in a press gaggle that continued funding support for HBCU’s may be unconstitutional. Wow! Talk about being blindsided. The school presidents did not see that coming, since the government helps fund public universities throughout the country. To make the news more outrageous, Education Secretary Betsy DeVoss was the commencement speaker at Bethune- Cookman University today. She was hastily scheduled in last week. Her reception was about what you would expect given Friday’s news. She was booed and many graduates stood and turned their backs on her as she spoke. At one point, university President Edison Jackson interrupted DeVoss to warn students, “If this behavior continues, we can mail the degrees to you.” After the event, the media was held in the gym for more than an hour by Secret Service and the school, so as not to be able to speak to departing graduates and protestors.
It is a hard lesson for these school presidents, but one many of us have learned already. Do not pay so much attention to what Donald says, for it is often “out and out” balderdash. Pay attention only to what he does, because that is the true sign of the “outward randomness” of this administration…for however much longer it lasts.
