Why did the first Trump administration go off the rails so quickly and spectacularly? And will his second administration do the same — or will it end up being more effective than many people expect? Sean Spicer played a central role in the chaos eight years ago as Donald Trump’s first White House press secretary: His outlandish claims about presidential inauguration crowd sizes were illustrative of the circuslike atmosphere where aides and advisers preened and performed to please ringmaster Trump and little got done. In a Times Opinion Video, Mr. Spicer shares his regrets about the crowd-size debacle and draws on his experience with Mr. Trump in power to argue that his second term will be profoundly different from the fractious first.
Mr. Spicer, who has worked in politics for more than 30 years and served as the communications director of the Republican National Committee, says that the Trump team at the White House in early 2017 was no team at all, but rather a cast of characters who didn’t know one another well and got swept up in the opportunity to promote their own brands, which led to infighting and personality wars. This time around, he says, Mr. Trump has a team of long-term allies who, from Day 1, will prioritize policy over personality.
If you didn’t like Mr. Trump, the chaos of his first term was pretty useful — it impeded his agenda. But no one is peacocking and leaking nearly as much this time around, and Mr. Spicer argues that’s a sign of things to come: The next Trump White House will stay on the rails and have a very different impact.
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