May 12, 2017

I don't want C&L readers to need more brain bleach than is necessary on this, but it is important to document the "atrocities" as Mrs. Huckabee-Sanders would say.

This clip is a crime against journalism, but it's Cillizza, so you expect it.

CNN takes as its excuse this Time Magazine article "Donald Trump After Hours," which includes this breathless puff:

The waiters know well Trump’s personal preferences. As he settles down, they bring him a Diet Coke, while the rest of us are served water, with the Vice President sitting at one end of the table. With the salad course, Trump is served what appears to be Thousand Island dressing instead of the creamy vinaigrette for his guests. When the chicken arrives, he is the only one given an extra dish of sauce. At the dessert course, he gets two scoops of vanilla ice cream with his chocolate cream pie, instead of the single scoop for everyone else. The tastes of Pence are also tended to. Instead of the pie, he gets a fruit plate.

I'm sure that once this national nightmare and ongoing constitutional crisis ends, "Pence's Fruit Plate" will make an excellent punk band name.

But wait, how can I even write about this without checking first for Chris Cillizza's hot take?

CHRIS CILLIZZA: Right. The broader point here that they were trying to make in the "Time" article is The White House staff has adjusted to Donald Trump's tastes. So when everyone else gets water, he get a Diet Coke. When everyone else gets one scoop of ice cream, he gets two. My two children would gladly be president if they could get double the number of ice cream scoops. Terrible platform to run on.

BROOKE BALDWIN: If we were getting ice cream, I'd make sure you got two scoops.

CILLIZZA: Am I your vice president?

BALDWIN: No you would be eating fruit if you were.

CILLIZZA: Good point. and I never ever eat fruit.

Hey, I can think of something for you to eat, Chris!

Anyway, what they never get to is that Two-Scoop Donnie has a terribly ugly history of fat-shaming others around him, particularly women:

Trump has also spoken up about celebrities' weights, including those of Rosie O'Donnell—whom he called a "fat pig"—and Kim Kardashian—whom he said had "gotten a little bit large" when pregnant. A focal point of Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign came when she teamed up with Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe who Trump allegedly labeled "Miss Piggy" and once said couldn't lose weight by working out because "she'd eat the whole gymnasium." In 2005, he even said his then-pregnant wife Melania Trump was a "blimp" and a "monster in all the right places."

But this isn't a story about who Donald Trump really is. This is a massage piece about Washington style as fashioned by the White House, no matter how damaging the so-called president is to our democracy. This White House normalizing is the media's fault.

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