In the aftermath of the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, an event that an armed gunman attempted to breach, the conventional wisdom was that Donald Trump might receive a fresh infusion of political capital. After months of presidential failures and sinking popularity, this awful incident, the argument went, offered him an opportunity for a possible course correction.
To the extent that Trump and his team actually thought about any of this, they appeared to settle on three goals. The first was obvious: The president really wants that ballroom vanity project he’s obsessed over for months. The second was more subtle: The White House used Saturday night’s violence to try to stifle dissent.
But the third goal was the most unexpected. MS NOW reported:
Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel has once again found himself in hot water with the Trump administration for comments he made on his show days before the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday.
In a Thursday night sketch parodying the dinner, Kimmel performed a mock speech and joked at the expense of President Donald Trump’s inner circle, including first lady Melania Trump.
“Of course, our first lady, Melania, is here. Look at her, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow,” Kimmel said in the sketch that aired on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” two days before the event at the Washington Hilton.
In context, the joke was about the 24-year age gap between the president and the first lady, and the sketch made no references to political violence or assassinations.
But in the aftermath of Saturday’s developments, the White House nevertheless made Kimmel out to be a villain. In fact, the president issued a statement by way of his social media platform insisting that the comedian issued a “despicable call to violence” — something that, again, did not occur in reality — before concluding that Kimmel “should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC.”
The first lady and multiple White House officials issued related statements.
At this point, we could talk about how this offensive against the late-night host clearly appears to be rooted in bad faith. We could also talk about the White House’s weird preoccupation with late-night comedians, including the president’s ridiculous claim in the fall that their programs are “probably illegal,” the First Amendment be damned.
We could even talk about the fact that Team Trump’s first offensive against Kimmel was an embarrassing failure that ended up helping the comedian, and there’s no reason to believe the sequel will be any more successful.
But as important as those elements are, I’m still having a hard time understanding why the White House is investing its political capital so poorly. If the president and his operation are looking at the global and domestic landscape right now, and they’re thinking that Kimmel is worthy of their time, focus and energies, they’re mistaken.
Shortly after Barack Obama’s election in 2008, his incoming White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, echoed a familiar refrain: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
To the extent that the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner represented a crisis, Team Trump is letting it go to waste.
The post Why it’s a mistake for the Trumps to invest political capital in a fight against Kimmel appeared first on MS NOW.
