White House aides are admitting that their own spin should not be believed and that the Manafort indictment and foreign policy adviser George Papadopolous flipping to cooperate with the FBI is very bad.
Off the record, people in the White House are admitting that there is no happy face to be put on this:
"Any spin coming from the White House should be discounted," a former Trump aide just told me. "This is very, very bad."
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) October 30, 2017
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If people who work in the White House weren’t terrified before, they are now. The Manafort indictment was expected for months, but the fact that the FBI arrested and flipped a Trump adviser should have anyone who worked with the Trump campaign or works in the White House currently, freaked out.
There is no way to spin this. The fact that the White House is trying to distance Trump from both Manafort and Papadopolous is telling. The move from this is a nothing burger story to Trump wasn’t close to Manafort and Papadopolous is gigantic.
This is not just a bad scandal day for Trump. It may be the worst scandal day for any president in the last forty plus years. There is no silver lining here for Trump, and anybody who spins this other wise is living on another planet and should not be taken seriously.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association