The humiliation of Sean Spicer may be a prelude to something much worse
DONALD TRUMP seems to enjoy publicly humiliating people, especially those in his power. There was the Venezuelan beauty queen, Alicia Machado, he nicknamed “Miss Piggy” and made to work out in front of a pack of male journalists. There is Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, one of the first senior Republicans to endorse Mr Trump, who the president repaid by cracking fat jokes at his expense and passing over him for cabinet appointment. But no Trump hireling has been more ridiculed, by the president and at times, it has seemed, half of America, than the chief White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, who, despairing of his treatment, abruptly resigned on July 21st.
However many millions of dollars Mr Spicer is about to make off the back of his six-month spell as Mr Trump's official mouthpiece, it may not be enough. After just six months in Mr Trump’s service, Mr Spicer’s reputation is in pieces. Formerly a respected press chief at the Republican National Committee, he was dispatched by the president, on his debut appearance in the West Wing briefing room, to lie ridiculously about the size of Mr Trump’s rather modest inauguration crowd. The ceremony, Mr Spicer claimed, had drawn the “largest audience ever to watch an inauguration, period—both in person and around the globe.” This was so manifestly false and so instantly damaging to Mr Spicer’s credibility that there would probably have been no recovering from it even if Mr Trump had not continued to send Mr Spicer forth to tell obvious falsehoods. As an instrument of his master’s vanity and attachment to untruths, Mr Spicer became a figure of fun. He was compared to the Iraqi information minister, Mohammad Saeed al-Sahhaf—he who denied that Baghdad was under attack even as American tanks could be seen rolling in.
The president rewarded Mr Spicer for sacrificing his good name by disparaging his performance in the briefing room, and his appearance, and by indiscreetly sounding out friends and other aides on whom he should replace him with. Mr Trump and other aides also frequently blind-sided or contradicted Mr Spicer on Twitter and elsewhere. Mr Spicer said the president had sacked his FBI director, James Comey, on the advice of the justice department; Mr Trump later said it was because Mr Comey was a “showboat”. Shortly after the former spokesman insisted last week that a campaign meeting the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump junior, had held with some well-connected Russians was convened to discuss adoption policy, Donald junior admitted that it had in fact been arranged to discuss some dirt the Russians claimed to have on Hillary Clinton. Feasting on the laughing-stock the White House spokesman had become, the satirists at "Saturday Night Live" lampooned Mr Spicer as a raging lunatic, prone to battering amazed journalists with his podium, and, what is more, a tragic figure—an example of the chewed-up former collaborator that Mr Trump’s career path is strewn with.
Characteristically, the president, a television addict, was said not to mind the ridiculous figure he had made of his spokesman; he was said to be impressed by the fact that Mr Spicer’s televised briefings got “great ratings”—albeit that this probably owed a lot to "Saturday Night Live". It was said that Mr Trump did mind, however, the fact that Mr Spicer was caricaturised on the show by a woman actor, Melissa McCarthy. Certainly, something about Mr Spicer seemed to needle the president. A devout Catholic, Mr Spicer was unexpectedly omitted from the list of White House officials selected to accompany Mr Trump to meet the pope in May. Mr Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, his social media director Dan Scavino, and his former bodyguard, Keith Schiller, were among those who went along instead.
Disparaged by Mr Trump over his on-camera efforts to justify the administration’s missteps and the president’s erratic behaviour, Mr Spicer increasingly went off-air. His pugnacious deputy, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has been standing in for him at White House briefings in recent weeks. Most of these have also been off-camera. Mr Spicer was said to be graduating to a more strategic, less public-facing, but by no means diminished, role. Yet on July 21st Mr Trump hired as his communications director—a role senior to Mr Spicer’s—a former financier, Anthony Scaramucci, who is known for his colourful right-wing invectives, friendship with Mr Trump’s children, and slavish defence of the president. Mr Spicer, who argued strongly against Mr Scaramucci’s appointment, on the basis that he lacked the necessary qualities and experience to be a White House spokesman, girded whatever dignity he had left, and resigned. “It’s been an honor & a privilege to serve” he tweeted, confirming his exit. In a statement, Mr Trump expressed his gratitude to Mr Spicer. “Just look at his great ratings”, the president said.
In his own briefing room debut, Mr Scaramucci, who is popularly known as “The Mooch”, gave an early indication of how he understands his new remit. “There’s been at times a disconnect between the way we see the president and how much we love the president and the way some of you perhaps see the president,” he said. “I certainly see the American people probably see the president the way I do. But we want to get that message out there.” It is perhaps fortunate for Mr Scaramucci that Mr Trump’s administration has, six months in, no legislative achievements to elucidate; policy does not look like being the new communications director’s strong suit.
Yet his appointment, and Mr Spicer’s shabby treatment and exit, may stand for more than the tragic cheapening of the presidency under Mr Trump. Increasingly anxious about the activities of Robert Mueller, a former FBI director who is leading an independent investigation into Russia’s intervention into the election that brought Mr Trump to power, including possible collusion by members of the Trump team, Mr Trump appears determined to surround himself with loyal placemen. Mr Spicer, though willing to humiliate himself in Mr Trump’s service, was considered insufficiently loyal. His ally and former colleague at the RNC, Reince Priebus, Mr Trump’s chief of staff, is rumoured to be next for the exit. There are even hints that this is a process which will lead to Mr Trump trying to remove Mr Mueller.
In an interview with the New York Times on July 19th, Mr Trump suggested the deeply-respected investigator would be crossing a “red line” if he were to scrutinise Mr Trump’s complicated business affairs, which, because of the president’s refusal to publish his tax returns, remain largely secret. Mr Mueller and his team, the president said, are riven with conflicts of interests which he would reveal “at some point”. Mr Spicer, a tragic, ridiculous figure as Mr Trump's official mouthpiece, at least, albeit unwittingly, provided America with a few laughs. The fear is that the Trump presidency could be about to take a much graver turn.