Asked about John Lewis, the president complained that the civil rights leader had skipped his inauguration.
One way by which President Trump has been able to navigate the presidency is that he has a massive institutional safety net. The historic tendency to conflate “the president” with “the White House” has allowed Trump’s aides and staffers to repeatedly put him on record as holding positions that he clearly doesn’t hold. A fumbling comment from Trump can be modified either by an after-the-fact cleanup or by pointing to a statement the White House produced on his behalf or an excerpt of a speech written for him.
How does this work in practice? In early July, Trump retweeted a video in which one of his supporters used the phrase “white power” to respond to a heckler. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was prepared to address the subject.
“What I would note,” McEnany said of the incident, “the president has repeatedly condemned hate. August of 2019: ‘In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy. These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America.’ In April 2019: ‘We have no tolerance for those who disrupt this peace. And we condemn all hate and violence, especially in our places of worship.’ August 2018: ‘I condemn all types of racism.’ He’s repeatedly done this.” Continue reading.