Now that former disgraced FOX News chief Bill Shine (canned a year ago for aiding and abetting Roger Ailes's culture of sexual harassment at the network) has settled into his new job as Trump Regime Propaganda Head, it seems his first job is to shuffle the deck chairs on the Trumptanic and to let Politico know that current Mouth of Sauron Sarah Huckabee Sanders will soon be departing.
Bill Shine, the newly appointed White House deputy chief of staff for communications, has quietly begun asking friends and associates for their opinions about who could succeed Sanders if she leaves in the coming months, according to two people familiar with those conversations.
Shine, in a brief interview, denied having such conversations. “I have not had a meeting or discussion about this,” he said last week, noting he had been on the job for only a short time. Shine praised Sanders and called her a “total team player."
Although no decisions have been made about successors, an unofficial shortlist is already emerging among Trump White House alumni, former campaign aides and other backers of the president.
At the top of the list is Heather Nauert, the current State Department spokeswoman and former Fox News host. Nauert has impressed White House aides with her steady performances in Foggy Bottom. Multiple people close to the White House pointed out that Nauert remained in Trump’s good graces even when the president soured on former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Nauert’s Fox News pedigree, paired with her close relationship with Trump and her ability to stay on message and remain calm under pressure, makes her a “no-brainer” for the job, according to one person close to the White House. Nauert, who did not respond to a request for comment, has told associates that she’s unsure whether she would want the job, but people who know her believe she’d take it if asked.
Other possibilities include Bill Hemmer, a Fox News reporter; Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host who recently left the network to join a pro-Trump outside group; Treasury Department spokesman Tony Sayegh, who worked closely with the White House on its overhaul of the tax code and used to be a Fox News contributor; and White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah.
Guilfoyle is dating Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., a fact that could complicate her appointment as press secretary, and several associates of the president said she is unlikely to get the job.
“There will be people who will want the job,” said former George W. Bush chief of staff Andrew Card. “The best way to get the job is not to apply.”
The prospect of losing Sanders, who is widely liked in the White House and is seen by her colleagues as a deft communicator and defender of the president, has some close to Trump in panic mode, worrying that it’ll be difficult to find a suitable replacement who can stand up to withering scrutiny from the public.
“Who would want that job?” one former administration official asked, summing up the feelings of many in Washington, who note that being the public face of Trump’s presidency can be a thankless and frequently impossible task.
Now I'm not sure if Sanders wants out, or if Shine doesn't think she's up to it any more (and both can be true) but to have your new boss come in and then two weeks after he arrives a story pops up in Politico about your eventual replacement, well, you're not long for your current position, sorry. I won't be sad to see her go, and I don't have any sympathy for her enabling this regime to lie on a daily basis to the American people and the world.
It's clear that Shine was brought in to coordinate the regime's response with the state media officials at his old network as the Mueller probe moves into the endgame stages, and Sanders is not up to that task. Her replacement has to be far more ruthless and sinister instead of the "slightly baffled soccer mom about to call your district manager" routine Sanders brought to the table for the last year or so.
I do know this, whoever does replace Sanders will have to be a better liar than she is, because she's terrible at it. Her tell that she's lying is "her mouth is open". And frankly, I'd like her to get a new job at a federal prison as an inmate depending on what she was party to.
Of course, that goes for a lot of current regime employees.
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