The news that White House communications director Mike Dubke has resigned came as a surprise to most Americans, primarily because few of us were under the impression the Trump White House even had such a position. Someone was responsible for directing the tire fire? How long had that been going on?
But now the White House needs to fill the position all over again, and Republicans with the appropriate resumes are even less eager to join Team Trump than they were four months ago.
"Hell no!” said one Republican — one of the most common types of response BuzzFeed News got from operatives. “That would be career suicide.” [...]
"That's like asking someone who just witnessed a horrific bungee jumping accident whether they would like to go next,” one Republican source responded in a text message. [...]
"Sorry, I’m sorry," the source said between stifled laughs. "Oh, you’re being serious? Oh my god, I’m crying of laughter. Why would anyone in their right mind want to be his communications director?"
Republican Party stalwarts are willing to push Trump's agenda and tolerate mountains of grief and scandal for the sake of chipping away at their own. But working in the same building as the man is, for the same people that take on the job of making Paul Ryan look humane or deflect questions about Mitch McConnell's favorite sunning rock, right out of the question. And this leaves Team Trump a bit in the lurch:
The disclosures from investigations stemming from Russian meddling in last year’s election — coupled with the president’s habit of undercutting his staff — have driven away candidates for West Wing jobs that normally would be among the most coveted in American politics, according to people involved in the search.
Of the two—a scandal involving connections between multiple members of the Trump White House and foreign dealers who do not have our own nation's best interests at heart, and the presidential "habit" of treating his core team like dirt—which do we suppose is making prospective hires more wary? That’s a tough call.
In any event, this leaves Team Trump with decidedly slim pickings when it comes to staffing that position or any others. All eyes appear to be on two specific figures from the campaign that may be willing to reprise their roles. Ex-adviser Corey Lewandowski, fired from the campaign for reasons that may or may not have had to do with assaulting a reporter before it was Cool, sounds eager to rejoin the team for the right position and right price. And former deputy campaign manager David Bossie, who is a seedy, rotten, Clinton-obsessed nutjob from way back and therefore has no compunction about doing crooked jobs for crooked people, is apparently being heavily recruited by the team for some formal or informal role in the White House's planned Steve Bannon-led "war room."
The "war room" is intended as a response to the press reporting bad things about them, which the entire team seems to be convinced is the sole reason Donald Trump and the Trumpeteers aren't being more successful in pushing their white nationalism-laced directives and a budget barely distinguishable from terrorism. The plan is to shout the same things, but louder, and that should fix things right up again.
If we were in the prediction game, let's see: Who might take on the role of Senior Tire Fire Attendant and Moist Towelette Tosser? It seems likely it will be someone who plays a recurring “communications expert” role on Fox News, primarily because few of those people seem to have actual day jobs. It seems likely that it will be someone who has worked for Republicans before, but only crackpot Republicans that the rest of the party declined to touch. It seems likely they will be bad at their job, because anyone with the expertise or talent to actually do it well would immediately bow out of contention, correctly recognizing that there's no upside to chaining yourself to the bow of a sinking ship.
Any guesses?