The Trump White House has been faced with one scandal after another from the minute he took office. Last week was a particularly bad one. The adult film star he allegedly had an affair with said her $130,000 hush money agreement was null and void and she was ready to talk. A former Playboy model stepped forward to detail her 9-month-long affair with a recently married Donald Trump in 2006. The White House backed and then backed away from Rob Porter, Trump’s staff secretary who reportedly physically abused both his former wives and inexplicably got hired by the Trump White House, despite an FBI background check finding credible evidence he was abusive and open to blackmail. And then, of course, came the tragedy in Florida, where a former student used an assault weapon to commit mass murder at his former high school.
At least one White House official said the tragedy gave the White House staff just the break they needed. From the Washington Post:
“For everyone, it was a distraction or a reprieve,” said one White House official, speaking anonymously to reflect internal conversations. “A lot of people here felt like it was a reprieve from seven or eight days of just getting pummeled.”
The official likened the brief political calm to the aftermath of the October 2017 gun massacre in Las Vegas that left 58 dead and hundreds more injured. That tragedy united White House aides and the country in their shared mourning for the victims and their families.
“But as we all know, sadly, when the coverage dies down a little bit, we’ll be back through the chaos,” the official said.
Absolutely sickening.