A week after Donald Trump told reporters he hoped to "get both" a spending bill and a Trumpcare 2.0 vote—and then pledged an all-caps “TAX REFORM AND TAX REDUCTION" roll out to punctuate his first 100 days in office, press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday was a lot more like, yeah, whenever.
Of course, this is exactly what Paul Ryan told his GOP colleagues about the health care measure during a weekend conference call: When we have the votes (i.e. who the hell knows).
Trump is so desperate for a legislative win right now, he's taken to downplaying expectations and declaring victory in a single tweet:
Frankly, we think Trump's tweet volume alone should be counted as a Trump accomplishment. Why not add “most tweets ever” to signing the most executive orders ever (not really, but close enough for Trump’s purposes), dropping the biggest non-nuclear bomb ever, and breaking the biggest Senate rule ever (i.e. the filibuster) to advance a Supreme Court nominee and finally, finally put a “win” on the score board—phew!—by cheating.
Spicer had the impossible task Monday of bridging the gap between Trump's promises from one day to the next. Last Thursday, it was votes on funding the government and health care. By Friday, Trump's mercurial sense of urgency had turned into a blasé "next week doesn't matter... no particular rush" shrug.
So what's a press secretary to do? Channel the Friday Trump—he's so much easier to please.
Trump has now surpassed his predecessor in one respect: He truly embodies "the fierce urgency of whenever"—a dig progressives once slung at Obama for not meeting their expectations early in his presidency.
Trump is absolutely frantic for accomplishments. But like a treasure hunter surveying the sand dunes with a metal detector, he has no idea what they'll look like or even if they'll present. So “whenever” will have to do.