Axios Claims Trump ‘Has a Chance for a Reset’
The White House is clearly working hard to fix the image of the historically unpopular President Trump.
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate, has been trying to talk with the president, well before Charlottesville, about race in America. The president has refused, until now. The White House tells Axios Trump has finally accepted the Senator’s invitation and will sit down with him on Wednesday.Â
Senator Scott blasted Trump after the president’s offensive remarks on the white nationalist, white supremacist, and “alt-right” violence in Charlottesville that led to the death of Heather Heyer.
Trump infamously blamed the violence “on many sides” and equated Neo-Nazis with those protesting their presence. He initially refused to condemn white supremacists, then did so, then backtracked by saying “both sides” were to blame.
Senator Scott “has been harshly critical of Trump on racial issues,” Axios notes, and “pilloried Trump on ‘Face the Nation’ after the Charlottesville violence, saying the president needs to ‘sit down and become better acquainted — have a personal connection to the painful history of racism and bigotry of this country.'”
But Axios also notes Sen. Scott “lambasted Trump as late as mid-October for “‘oftentimes toxic‘Â rhetoric. But he said he would vote for him anyway, because Hillary Clinton had also said ‘vicious’ things.”
The White House under Trump’s still-new chief of staff, John Kelly, and newly-promoted communications director, Hope Hicks, has been aggressively working to improve the president’s image. Leaking news of this meeting Trump had previously refused is just one way.
On Saturday, at least four of the nation’s top media outlets all ran different yet equally flawed and embarrassing versions of what some noted appear to be White House talking points, claiming Trump is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but a deal-maker. The president’s surprise agreement to Democrats’ terms of a three-month debt limit increase angered Republicans but won him some temporary points among more moderate voters.
The White House is trying to spin this to Trump’s favor, when in reality he gave in on an issue he does not care about.
What is disturbing is how many reporters are willing to carry the president’s water to retain access for “scoops.”
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Image by Kurtis Garbutt via Flickr and a CC license
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