“We’ve been meeting with potential people that may be of service to this administration,” said Mr. Spicer, who has done some of the outreach himself.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Yet few have been a good fit — and most Republicans in Washington said it would be among the hardest jobs to fill in the Trump administration.
The biggest shift Mr. Trump is discussing is a dramatic change to the briefing room schedule, including limiting briefings that he has described as a “spectacle” to once a week and asking reporters to submit written questions. Some of Mr. Trump’s outside advisers, including the Fox News host Sean Hannity, have urged him to curtail the freewheeling — and often embarrassing — barrage of questions. Mr. Trump has been particularly irked by CNN, and other allies such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have suggested banning the cable network.
“Donald Trump might as well get behind the podium himself, as the press coverage is the part of his presidency he cares the most deeply about,” said Tim Miller, who was communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign. “You can’t be a credible press secretary when your boss makes you tell preposterous lies. You can’t be a credible press secretary when you don’t know what your boss thinks on key issues because he changes his mind depending on the last person he talked to.”
Among the candidates: Laura Ingraham, the conservative radio host, about whom Trump advisers remain “iffy”; Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Fox News commentator who said publicly that Mr. Trump had called her in recent weeks (she said she didn’t want the job); and David Martosko, an editor for The Daily Mail who was briefly considered for the role during the transition and has been talked about for other roles now (White House aides said he was liked by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, but was never under serious consideration and put out a statement withdrawing his name).
Filling the role of communications director, open for the last few weeks, has not gone much more smoothly.
Scott Jennings, a veteran Republican operative and a George W. Bush administration alumnus, was brought in to discuss the job. But he signed on with CNN as a commentator. Mark Corallo, the spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team, also discussed taking that role with two Trump advisers. And Jason Miller, who was Mr. Trump’s communications adviser in the 2016 campaign and is a favorite of the president, has remained out of the White House despite pleas to return.
A cluster of Trump advisers have been working on what has become a monthslong project of improving media relations for a president who prefers to take matters into his own hands, in 140-character increments on Twitter, undercutting whatever his advisers say on his behalf.
Several Trump aides, including Mr. Kushner, Mr. Spicer, Stephen K. Bannon and the chief of staff, Reince Priebus, have made their own phone calls searching for potential job candidates, sometimes not telling others in the building what they’re doing. Some believe that the communications director needs his or her own lane; others believe that the person should report to Mr. Spicer, for whom a new role as a deputy chief of staff has been discussed. Others said there might not be any kind of change.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
But so far, there has been no real signoff from the only person whose vote matters: the president.
The job is not all downside — Mr. Spicer has been pummeled on late-night shows and “Saturday Night Live,” but he went from being an obscure party spokesman with a reputation for blackballing reporters he didn’t like to being asked to pose for selfies with fans at the congressional baseball game last week.
The current setup is “sustainable, but it’s not a good way to get things done,” said Charles Black, a veteran Republican lobbyist.
“Donald Trump has been successful for 50 years speaking for himself both in public and in private, and he is indeed the best spokesman for himself,” Mr. Black said. “But presidents don’t have the luxury of speaking for themselves and representing themselves on every issue, every day. They need loyal people who can speak for them and answer multiple questions from reporters about things that the president doesn’t need to deal with.”
Continue reading the main story
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/us/politics/im-right-here-sean-spicer-says-while-toiling-to-find-successor.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.