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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe cascade of missteps that turned one White House error into a messy week-GRAPH...
Politics Analysis
The cascade of missteps that turned one White House error into a messy week
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/21/the-cascade-of-missteps-that-turned-one-white-house-error-into-a-messy-week/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_missteps-933am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.c41289e4daf3
By Philip Bump October 21 at 9:16 AM
President Trump listens during a news conference Monday in the White House Rose. (AP)
Hindsight is 20/20, but sometimes foresight has a sharp focus, too.
It was fairly clear a week ago that the White House should have gotten out in front of questions about the deaths of four Special Forces soldiers earlier this month in Niger. The men had been killed on Oct. 4, but there had been almost no word from the White House. No explanation, no condolences just brief comments from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders including a statement on Oct. 6 that, Were continuing to review and look into this.
By Monday of this week, when President Trump decided to hold an impromptu news conference in the White House Rose Garden, the administration should have been ready for questions on the subject of the soldiers deaths. When a reporter raised it, Trumps response didnt suggest a great deal of preparation. Instead, he tried to one-up past presidents by claiming that he was going above-and-beyond in calling the families of the soldiers who had been killed.
Trumps incorrect (and rapidly debunked) assertion that he was doing something that past presidents hadnt was like dropping a snowball at the top of a mountain. As the week went on and as Trump and his team kept making more and more mistakes and misstatements the snowball grew and grew, consuming five days of media attention.
Weve done our best to illustrate how a bad situation was made much worse. On the chart below, blue boxes indicate decisions or comments that continued or worsened the situation for the White House. More detail and links to news stories follow.
https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484
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The cascade of missteps that turned one White House error into a messy week-GRAPH... (Original Post)
riversedge
Oct 2017
OP
Kaleva
(36,343 posts)1. As I wrote in a previous OP, The Trump WH is a cluster fuck of an operation
BobTheSubgenius
(11,567 posts)3. You give them too much credit.
It would be an upgrade for them to be merely a cluster fuck.
BigmanPigman
(51,627 posts)2. Kelley as as stupid as a bag of rocks for not considering
that there could quite likley be a video of the congressperson's speech. What decade is he living in? DUH?! Time for him to retire (he should have long ago).
not fooled
(5,801 posts)5. Prolly
being a puke, he thought he could just lie with impunity and no one would check. After all, IOKIYAR--most of the time. He just went too far this time and the stakes were too high. Too much scrutiny and too easily debunked. Yeah, he sure was stupid.
Most puke officeholders lie all the time--about policy and its implications, so as to pander to their base and deceive everyone else. Few ever get called out on it. Kelly being a military man still is around pukes all the time and I guess the lying is contagious.
iluvtennis
(19,872 posts)4. Nice flowchart