Republicans craft steady anti-impeachment message
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s fight against impeachment began with an 8 a.m. call to “Fox and Friends” on Friday.
Trump declared that under President Barack Obama, “at the highest levels of government there was spying on my campaign” and in an implicit admission that he expects the House to impeach him, Trump offered, “Frankly, I want a trial.”
Trump’s comments followed a Thursday meeting between White House top staff and six GOP senators to discuss what happens on the impeachment front when Congress reconvenes in December.
After the talk, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters that the parties had come to believe the Senate was unlikely to produce the 51 votes needed to avert a trial if the House impeaches Trump.
During rambling remarks that lasted 57 minutes, Trump also made a number of highly personal remarks about foes and friends.
He called House Judiciary Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., “a sick puppy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “totally incompetent” and argued that the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was “no angel” and didn’t want to display his picture in the embassy.
Trump even slammed one of his most loyal aides, White House counselor and former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.
“Kellyanne is great but she’s married to a total whack job,” Trump said, a reference to George Conway, an attorney and frequent critic of the president’s on Twitter. Then Trump seemed to blame Conway for her husband’s behavior. “She must have done some bad things to him, because that guy’s crazy,” Trump said.
The White House communications response on impeachment is no different than its usual response to any issue, GOP strategist and Harvard Institute of Policy senior fellow Alice Stewart told the Review-Journal.
“The White House can send out messaging and talking points and surrogates, but that doesn’t mean that Trump’s not going to follow up with a contradictory tweet or call into a news show and say something off message,” she said.
While few in Washington expect impeachment to lead to a Senate conviction that would remove Trump from office, Washington Republicans would like to see a more cohesive public relations strategy. Instead, the message has been scattershot. The Republican National Committee and Trump re-election campaign have sent out statements in response to various witnesses’ testimony. Surrogates and independent expenditure campaigns also have chimed in.
But there are no daily press briefings at which the White House press secretary can lay out more strategic arguments.
It wasn’t until earlier this month that the administration tapped two high-profile individuals — former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Tony Sayegh — who worked in communications for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin until he left for the private sector six months ago — to man an impeachment “war room.”
Bondi made her first appearance for the team on “CBS This Morning” Wednesday. The team leader with legal chops mistakenly said U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland was ambassador to Ukraine.
Stewart credited Sayegh with polishing the messaging that helped pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.
"President Donald Trump responded to a week of impeachment hearings with a nearly one-hour interview on Fox & Friends. Many of his points were either inaccurate or repeated debunked conspiracy theories."
-Politifact
