Grime And Punishment

If you have any doubts about what Trump intends in three weeks, incoming Mouth of Sauron Sean Spicer put those doubts to rest Sunday.

President-elect Donald Trump's incoming White House press secretary questioned whether President Obama’s actions against Russia for an alleged cyberattack on Democratic political organizations may be out of "proportion."

"I think one of the questions that we have is, 'Why the magnitude of this?' I mean you look at 35 people being expelled, two sites being closed down, the question is, is that response in proportion to the actions taken?" incoming White House press secretary and communications director Sean Spicer said in an exclusive interview on "This Week.”

We're being too hard on Putin apparently, so that will stop very shortly.

Spicer said that President-elect Trump is "going to sit down with the intelligence committee heads next week and get a full briefing on the situation."

He said Trump will determine "whether or not the Obama administration's response was in proportion to the actions taken. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. We need to have that briefing first."

The incoming White House press secretary added that Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision not to retaliate against the U.S. for the Obama administration's actions shows that "foreign leaders are seeing what we're seeing here in this country -- which is that business as usual is over. President Trump is not only going to put the American worker first, but he's going to restore America's place in the globe."

Restoring America's place in the globe apparently starts with restoring Putin's place in America.  But it also means dealing with Trump's enemies, chief among them the American press itself.

Spicer also addressed Trump's use of Twitter, saying that he will "absolutely" continue to use the social media platform to make policy statements and engage with his followers after he takes office.

"I think it freaks the mainstream media out that he has this following of over 45-plus million people that follow him on social media, that he can have a direct conversation. He doesn't have to have it funnel through the media," Spicer said. "The fact of the matter is when he tweets, he gets results."

Spicer said the Trump administration will also continue the tradition of holding regular White House press briefings and presidential press conferences.

"Some of them will be on camera, some of them will be off," he said. "Absolutely, we'll sit down and make sure that on a daily basis the press is informed."

Spicer is promising the carrot and the stick approach to the media, and they'll play ball in order to keep access, especially off-camera.  When can you recall an administration publicly promising so much off-camera access to a president the way Trump's people have (or publicly promising any off-camera access at all for that matter)?

Ahh, but there's the little issue of dealing with the defeated in order to unite the country, right?

President-elect Donald Trump’s press secretary pick questioned Sunday whether Hillary Clinton will be “punished” for what he said were her attempts to influence the election.

When asked about the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russian hackers tried to influence the presidential election in favor of Trump during a Sunday segment on ABC’s “This Week," Sean Spicer turned the question around.

“When are we going to start talking about the other side of this? Which is: What did Hillary Clinton do to influence the election? Is she being punished in any way?” Spicer asked, referencing the fact the Democratic nominee received debate questions ahead of time during the primary.

Forget sanctions on Putin. When do the sanctions on Clinton and the Democrats start? When do sanctions on people who voted for Clinton and the Democrats start?

Stay tuned!