When Cohn joined the Trump administration, many corporate executives were relieved, seeing him as a steadying influence.
.. Now, unfortunately, both Cohn and Mnuchin are endangering their reputations in their attempts to sell a tax cut.
.. Within the administration, there are real differences among how top officials have behaved and how they are perceived. Several — Tom Price, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer and Rex Tillerson — have badly sullied their standing with virtually everyone outside the administration. After long careers, they have turned themselves into punch lines.
.. The clearest exception is Jim Mattis, the defense secretary. Mattis has done so partly by avoiding scandal and minimizing conflicts with Trump. But he has also been careful to set his own ethical boundaries. Can you recall a single time when Mattis has said something outright untrue? I can’t. That’s how he has retained his dignity in the eyes of so many people.
.. In the early stages of promoting Trump’s tax cut, they have made a series of statements that are blatantly false — not merely shadings of truth or questionable claims but outright up-is-down falsehoods mocked by various fact-checkers. The statements make the two look more like Trump press secretaries than serious business executives whom members of Congress can trust.
.. They fall into two main categories. The first is who benefits from the tax plan. “Wealthy Americans are not getting a tax cut,” Cohn said on “Good Morning America.” He was echoing a promise that Mnuchin had made before the inauguration: “Any reductions we have in upper-income taxes will be offset by less deductions, so that there will be no absolute tax cut for the upper class.”
.. Want to guess how many families in New York State — population 20 million — are wealthy enough that they’re likely to pay any estate tax next year, according to an estimate based on I.R.S. data? Just 470. The number is so low in Montana, Vermont, West Virginia and four other states — likely fewer than 10 families in each — that the I.R.S. doesn’t provide details, to avoid privacy concerns.
.. Then there are the two men’s deficit claims. “This tax plan will cut down the deficits by a trillion dollars,” Mnuchin said. Cohn claimed that “we can pay for the entire tax cut through growth.”
.. The Harvard economist Greg Mankiw coined the phrase “charlatans and cranks” specifically to describe people who claim that tax cuts pay for themselves. And Mankiw is a conservative who’s worked for George W. Bush and Mitt Romney.
.. Neither one of them has yet turned 60 years old. These won’t be their last jobs.
Trump supporters are already normal
According to liberal critics, the lowlight of the Emmy show was a cameo by Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary, who did a riff with host Stephen Colbert making light of Spicer’s famous argument with the media over the size of President Trump’s inauguration crowd. Why was this so wrong? Because it served to “normalize” Spicer.
One example reported by The Post’s Morning Mix came from Kelly Dittmar, an assistant professor at Rutgers University, who tweeted, “Do NOT cheer for Sean Spicer. This is how we normalize & excuse unethical, racist, sexist, etc. behavior.”
That’s the same warning we’ve been hearing about Trump and anyone associated with him since the campaign. Trump and friends cannot be treated like human beings because doing so will “normalize” them. Translation: The anti-Trump citizenry is “normal,” while Trump and millions of Americans who support him are “abnormal.”.. We can all only hope that in a civilized world, society will become so tolerant as to recognize that Trump Supporter Syndrome (TSS) is not an illness at all. It is perfectly normal behavior that is merely misunderstood by those who do not share it. Those with TSS should be loved and accepted, not ostracized and shunned... In fact, Colbert should be admired for his brave outreach to Spicer. Stephen, some — including many of your Hollywood friends — may ridicule you. But history will prove you right.
Why are elites rewarding Sean Spicer?
Sean Spicer was no victim. He willingly served a president who asked him over and over again to lie. Rather than resist or quit, he repeatedly stood behind the podium, the face and voice of the White House, and lied
.. Spicer defended Trump’s lie about how there were three million fraudulent votes in the 2016 election.
.. He spent weeks using shifting stories to defend Trump’s lie about President Barack Obama wiretapping Trump Tower.
.. He lied about the nature of the meeting at Trump Tower in June, 2016, between senior Trump-campaign officials and several people claiming to have information about Hillary Clinton from the Russian government. “There was nothing, as far as we know, that would lead anyone to believe that there was anything except for discussion about adoption,”
.. He insulted and demeaned the free press, continuing an unprecedented assault on objective sources of truth.
.. Melissa McCarthy, in her uproarious impersonation of Spicer (or more like an inhabiting of Spicer) on “Saturday Night Live,” arguably did more than any single human in peeling the bark off the dishonest press secretary. She exposed the peculiar mix of
- inarticulateness,
- obnoxiousness and
- duplicitousness
that defined not only Spicer but also his boss.
..he fellowship for Spicer will be viewed as “honorific,” and hence a validation of his actions, which are defined almost entirely by the lies he told. Harvard absolutely should invite those who have served in this administration, although I grant you, the pickings are slim. But why not invite Sally Yates or James B. Comey? They’d surely have important lessons to depart about the obligations of public servants
Sean Spicer Responds to Melissa McCarthy’s Impression of Him
The former White House press secretary Sean Spicer broke his post-administration silence on Wednesday, joining Jimmy Kimmel for an interview. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Spicer didn’t exactly forswear his loyalty to President Trump. Mr. Spicer refused to back away from his old claims that members of the traditional news media are often untruthful, even after Mr. Kimmel asked: “Do you think that is a dangerous thing, to delegitimize the press for America?”
But when Mr. Kimmel asked whether the president’s constant tweeting had ever worn his patience thin, Mr. Spicer couldn’t help but laugh a little.
JIMMY KIMMEL: When the president would tweet, did you have an alert on your phone?
SEAN SPICER: Yes.
KIMMEL: Did he ever run a tweet by you before tweeting it?
SPICER: I don’t think so. Maybe once or twice.
KIMMEL: Did you ask him to? No, you didn’t. Did it ever wake you up in the middle of the night?
SPICER: I think there were times when you might have wanted to go to bed and you’d say, O.K., this is going to be a little longer night. Or you would get up and that was the first thing. But that was one of the president’s most effective tools on the campaign trail, and he continues to utilize it. So you were constantly kept on your toes. And I will tell you, there’s no one that’s working harder than him: When it comes to the hours of the day, he’s up late, he’s up early. And as a staffer you’re trying to get ahead of your boss.