White House Chief of Staff John Kelly implied that Donald Trump had read the Democratic memo, but when pushed Kelly changed his story to Trump has the memo and has been briefed on it.
Here was the exchange via the White House press pool as provided to PoliticusUSA:
q. Has the president read the Democratic memo?
Kelly: “He has it. It’s pretty lengthy.”
q. Has he read the whole thing?
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Kelly: “No, no, I just gave it to him.”
q. He’ll read it after this?
Kelly: “Oh, of course, yeah. We’ll get some people down to brief him on it.”
Trump isn’t going to read the Democratic memo
Who are we kidding here? Donald Trump gets “informed” watching Fox News. The President hates to read, so of course, he isn’t going to read the memo. He has no intention of reading the memo. He’ll have someone tell him what it says then he’ll go watch Fox and tweet about it. That is how this presidency works, or in the case of Trump, doesn’t work.
If the reporter had not asked Kelly if Trump has read the memo, the White House Chief of Staff would have been happy to lend the false impression that Trump had read the memo. By the way, a ten-page memo is not lengthy. Other presidents would consider a ten-page memo a light read, but for Donald Trump, tens pages is a heavy lift, so heavy that the president can’t handle it, and has to have other people read it for him.
The Trump White House will lie about anything, which is why their words should never be taken at face value.
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
