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Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top White House aide Jared Kushner has a lot of great ideas these days but, for some reason, he can't get the hazmat-clad White House spokespeople to take them up.
The political instincts of Kushner, who urged his father-in-law to fire former FBI director James Comey and also assured him disclosing the Don Jr. meeting would be a cakewalk, are clearly unassailable. Now he wants to see a more aggressive defense of the bombshell meeting he passed off as a breeze, but the White House press shop isn't buying it and not just because Kushner's advice has proven, well, wanting. They're desperately trying to save their own butts, writes Politico's Tara Palmeri:
Some of the communications aides, including press secretary Sean Spicer, and other senior staffers have expressed reservations. They say it’s best to leave it to outside counsel to handle the furor around Trump Jr., and fear inviting further legal jeopardy if Trump aides and allies more forcefully defend a meeting that they don’t fully know the details of, according to the sources. [...]
A source close to Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a top White House adviser, said that while he doesn’t have an exact plan for an overall Russia response, he was angry that there wasn’t a more robust effort from the communications team. Kushner wanted them to complain about chyrons on cable news, call reporters to update stories with White House statements, and unleash surrogates immediately. He was angry that there were no talking points offered to surrogates, the source said. One senior administration official suggested that two aides from the communications shop be dedicated to updating chyrons. [...]
"Jared wanted to get surrogates, he wanted an op-ed in The [Wall Street] Journal and The [New York] Times, and we said, ‘Wait, we have to talk through how that will play out. Who is going to say it, who is going to put their name on the op-ed and what baggage do they have?’" the outside adviser also said.
There's a reason we haven't seen any of that—it's a toxic waste heap and Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and other communications staff both want and need to limit their legal liabilities (most of them can’t afford to lawyer up the way Kushner, Pence, and others have). That's why the White House B-team has resurfaced. Kellyanne Conway and Sebastian Gorka never met a camera they didn't like and are perfectly willing to say basically anything as long as that little red light is blinking in their direction.