Did Melissa McCarthy seal Sean Spicer’s doom? Spicer was already reportedly out of favor with Donald Trump, but within days of McCarthy’s viral performance as him on Saturday Night Live, there are reports that he’s going to lose one of his two job titles. Spicer has been both press secretary and communications director, and sources tell CNN he may be replaced as communications director.
Not only that, but his poor performance is being used in the vicious, leak-prone power struggle between Trump’s top advisers:
A longtime Republican operative, Spicer is a close ally of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. According to the source close to the hiring process, Trump is upset with Priebus over the selection of Spicer for arguably the administration's most visible position, next to the President.
"Priebus vouched for Spicer and against Trump's instincts," the source said.
The President "regrets it every day and blames Priebus," the source added.
Other White House sources deny this and say Trump is “100 percent” behind Spicer. What may be most disturbing is that both things could be sort of true, depending what time of day Trump is asked about Spicer, who’s asking, and how the question is framed. But the stories saying Trump has problems with Spicer have been leaking out consistently since Day One, and it’s way too plausible that the indignity of having his press secretary played by a woman on Saturday Night Live would be Not Okay with Trump.
What Trump needs to realize, though, is that it’s not the gender of the person playing his staffer on TV that makes Trump looks weak. It’s the constant leaking by his aides, the use of the press to publicly play out the struggle for power in this White House, and the total lack of respect that the people closest to him display by running to the press—not just to trash each other, but to make Trump look like an out-of-his-depth joke.