White House aides and congressional Republicans are struggling to find their footing after President Trump's frenetic response to racial violence in Charlottesville, Va. this week plunged his administration into new depths of chaos.
Trump's refusal to back down on Thursday from his assertion that Confederate monuments should remain untouched extended the controversy into a sixth day and raised questions about how the White House could move on from a fight in which the president remains very much engaged.
"We are in uncharted territory on exactly where this goes," said one person close to the White House of the outrage surrounding Trump's comments.
"This is worse than the Billy Bush bus video, clearly, but it's on that level of survivability," the person said, referring to a leaked "Access Hollywood" tape that nearly derailed Trump's presidential campaign last year. "And we have to think about, ‘Ok, in the normal universe where gravity exists, this is not survivable.' But in his world, gravity does not exist, so I think it could be survivable, but he has to stop talking about it."
Several sources inside and outside the White House said Trump's decision to take questions after his infrastructure statement on Tuesday came as an unwelcome surprise to his staff. A White House official distributed talking points and research materials to allies shortly afterward that focused solely on infrastructure and construction permitting, according to copies obtained by the Washington Examiner, underscoring the degree to which aides believed the day would produce media coverage of infrastructure only.
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05.16.2024