The amount of damage control that this Trump White House requires could be far too much, even for someone like former RNC Press Secretary and current W.H. Press Secretary Sean Spicer. The spontaneous and sizable protests, which erupted nationwide was virtually ignored by the spin-master.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Another chaotic weekend.
SPICER: I think I would phrase it action-packed and getting (god-awful) things done.
SCARBOROUGH: Another chaotic weekend. let me ask you -- first of all, a clarification point.
SPICER: (acquiesces) Yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: On Steve Bannon being put on the NSC, and there was a lot of talk yesterday in the morning, especially that you had the DNI, Director of National Intelligence and also the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, taken off the permanent committee.
SPICER: They are both on. This is literally the language of 2001, the Director of National Intelligence and director of the joint chiefs shall attend meetings and it's the exact same language as in 2001 and much to do (aka much ado, at 1:00 into the clip) about nothing.... Exactly the same, but we took out the CIA and changed it to the DNI.
DAVID IGNATIUS: Well, with -- but the change, Sean, is that the addition of Steve Bannon, which is a little unusual.
SPICER: Well, no. except if you look --
IGNATIUS: Why the political voice?
Spicer tries to equate Bannon with Axelrod and Gibbs. So it's perfectly fine that a white supremacist with a military background, should be influential in our nation's security, right? He brings a geopolitical view to the table. Sure he does. Halperin gets in on the questioning:
MARK HALPERIN: Sean, does the president believe Islam is one of the world's great religions? And what role does Islamic-dominated countries play in fighting the war on terror?
SPICER: I think he respects people of peace-going faiths... but he recognizes that certain countries and certain areas of the world produce people that are -- seek to do harm and we have to make sure those people undergo a certain amount of vetting before they come into our country.
The problem with Trump in this instance, is he has no earthly idea how MUCH vetting these refugees have gone through, the scrutiny is more intense than he knows. Of course knowing that would require him to actually take interest in learning, and that's impossible since he's still obsessing about photos of the inauguration and Muslim discrimination. Predictably, he knows zilch about these poor folks.
Halperin asks what role Trump thinks about countries like Pakistan or Iraq can play in the war on terror and Spicer pivots to the current visit to the US by the King of Jordan and someone from the UAE. Those countries, incidentally, have Trump business ties or they plan to do a deal that will undoubtedly be terrific. Trump wants safe zones set up in Syria, and nevermind a plan to accomplish this. Notice that he'll happily partner with Saudi Arabia, the nation which provided 16 of the 19 perpetrators of the 911 attacks.
Then Ignatius asks a tough question.
IGNATIUS: i just want to ask, Sean, among the intelligence professionals, long time counterterrorism experts, there is a feeling, although the president's intention was to make the country more safe, that by affirming the ISIS narrative, the extremist narrative and immigration ban, he has made the world more dangerous for us, because people have new propaganda points to make. What would be his reaction to that?
Spicer pretends that these safe zones are evidence that 'we can work with these people.' Besides, it's only a few countries we are banning. He doesn't think it's a big deal.
SPICER: I think by making sure -- when we look at in context -- that is important. 325,000 people flew into this country from airports and 109 people were affected and slowed down in their travel. I understand that is an inconvenience but at the end of the day that that is a small price to pay as opposed to somebody losing their life because a terrorist attack was admitted.
BRZEZINKSI: So let's talk about the communication message in planning this out. We have coming across from the Associated Press, the Iraqi Parliament has approved a reciprocity measure after Trump's ban. Mmeaning you ban our people, we ban yours. Was this completely thought out?
SPICER: I think absolutely. the appropriate people and agencies including the department of state and homeland security department were performed. you're about to see the more we pose a significant security threat. if we set this down to every low level individual more people flooded into the country to take advantage before the ban went into effect.
SCARBOROUGH: What about the confusion regarding green card holders?
He has no answers, he's spinning out of control. The last part of the segment was devoted to who actually had Trump's ear and was most influential in foreign policy. Even though Steve Bannon is now a part of that, Spicer downplays his role. We know that Bannon is the guy who's pulling Putin's puppet strings from inside the White House.
Here's a handy reference to help you better understand this "Muslim ban."
