httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gatVUp_U4GA
Except, one thing was different: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, rather than her ostensible boss, Sean Spicer, would be giving the daily press briefing on Monday.
Deputy press secretaries in the past have filled in when the principal press secretary is otherwise occupied – as Sanders did when Spicer was on naval reserve duty recently.
Is Spicer the de facto communications director now? If so, why didn’t the White House say anything about it prior to Sanders backing into a kind of, sort of announcement at the podium today? If not, then why is Sanders saying it?
We know from all the great reporting done by CNN and others, that Trump has not been terribly pleased with the job Spicer is doing.
Spicer did get back in the saddle several times last week, but it seemed like his heart was now near into it.
Asked whether President Trump believed in global warming – a question he had been asked several days earlier – Spicer said he had still not had a chance to talk to the President about it.
A follow-up as to whether he would be able to find that time soon had Spicer, again, non-committal.
Which brings me to this question: Has Spicer reached the end of the line as the main briefer of the press? And, if so, when will we get formal confirmation? Is Spicer, as Sanders suggested, moving up the chain of command in the White House? Being layered over? Or, and this is totally possible given the unpredictability of this White House, will he be back behind the podium for the rest of the week, acting as though nothing has changed?