The Week in Washington: In Trump’s White House, It’s 1984
“Just stick with us, don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news,” President Trump instructed the audience at his Kansas City rally last Tuesday. “Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”
Trump’s Orwellian dictate notwithstanding, there was plenty happening in plain sight last week. On Tuesday night, you could trust your ears: A recording made by Trump’s ex-attorney Michael Cohen, in which the two of them discussed payments of hush money to a former Playboy model, was all over the evening news. Their decades-old relationship—an S&M-ish affair during which Cohen once famously said he would go so far as to take a bullet for his boss—has descended into a level of acrimony that had the president tweeting on Wednesday: “What kind of a lawyer would tape a client? So sad! Is this a first, never heard of it before? Why was the tape so abruptly terminated (cut) while I was presumably saying positive things? I hear there are other clients and many reporters that are taped - can this be so? Too bad!”
The fact that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is rumored to be combing through these presidential tweets has not slowed the early-morning missives: It seems that Trump’s finger is even itchier than usual. Last Sunday, enthusiastically employing the shift key, he wrote to Iranian President Rouhani: “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!” That same morning he declared: “I had a GREAT meeting with Putin and the Fake News used every bit of their energy to try and disparage it. So bad for our country!” But two days later, in a stunning reversal, he alleged: “I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election. Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!”
And Trump, for his part, doesn’t want reporters asking nosy questions. On Wednesday, the White House unceremoniously uninvited CNN’s Kaitlan Collins to a Rose Garden event. Seems that when Collins was acting as pool reporter earlier that day, she upset the commander in chief’s delicate sensibilities: According to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Collins shouted and asked “inappropriate” questions. (Hey Sarah—we thought you were quitting this summer?) This was a bridge too far even for the Trump house organ, Fox News—the channel put out a statement saying that the network stands with CNN “for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press.”
And more on Fox: On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Trump was livid that one of the TVs on Air Force One was turned not to Fox but to CNN. And who was watching that dastardly broadcast? None other than his wife. Melania’s spokesperson, forced to respond to this tempest in a TV screen, retorted, “Seems kind of silly to worry about what channel she watches on TV (any channel she wants, btw) or if she heard some recording on the news.”
In other news: On Tuesday, Ivanka Trump shuttered her fashion business, saying she wanted to concentrate on her work in Washington; that same day, Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with a group of right-wing high school students and laughed appreciatively when the kids chanted, “Lock her up,” referring to a private citizen, who has not been charged with any crimes and currently resides in Chappaqua, New York. (By Thursday, the AG appeared to have had second thoughts, musing: “I perhaps should have taken a moment to advise them . . . that you’re presumed innocent until cases are made.”) And guess who is not coming to dinner this fall? Vladimir Putin, whose triumphant arrival in America’s capital has been delayed because, according to National Security Adviser John Bolton, “The president believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year.”
The “witch hunt” is indeed far from over. On Thursday night, CNN reported that Michael Cohen might just testify that Trump knew all about the infamous Trump Tower meeting during which his son, his son-in-law, and his campaign chairman sought dirt on Hillary Clinton from a shifty Russian lawyer. Was the president himself in the room where it happened? Was he lurking in his gilded office for the gang to swing by after their chitchat? Was he on the other end of the phone, the possessor of the blocked number that Don Jr. called when the meeting ended?
We don’t know—at least not yet. What we do know is that two days before this ignoble gathering, on June 7, 2016, Trump announced plans to give a “major speech” about Clinton’s alleged scandals. “I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week, and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons,” he fulminated. “I think you’re going to find it very informative and very, very interesting.”
But this turned out to be fake news. The speech never happened.
