He ‘Went Rogue’: President Trump’s Staff Stunned After Latest Charlottesville Remarks
Chief of Staff John Kelly stared at the floor, arms crossed. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
In front of him, President Donald Trump was in the middle of reigniting an explosive controversy the White House had tried to extinguish just a day earlier.
To Kelly’s right, reporters pressed up against a velvet rope to shout questions about the president’s response to the violence over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia. With the élan of an orchestra conductor, Trump pointed at one reporter, then gestured to another. “Infrastructure question,” he barked at one point. “Go ahead.”
After a split-second came the query: “Does the statue of Robert E. Lee stay up?”
The ensuing exchange inside the lobby of Trump Tower between reporters and the president over the white nationalist rally and counter-protest in Charlottesville became one of the most extraordinary moments in a presidency that’s seen plenty of them.
To President Trump’s aides, it was stunning. Multiple sources inside and close to the White House described the president’s senior staff as confused and frustrated, caught off guard by Trump’s decision to defend his initial response to the violence in Virginia.
He “went rogue,” one senior White House official told NBC News.
The president’s team had choreographed a plan: he would descend the golden elevators of Trump Tower and step to the lectern in the lobby, flanked by his Treasury Secretary, his Transportation Secretary and his top economic adviser. He would highlight the infrastructure executive order he had just signed, and then he’d leave — head back upstairs and deploy his aides to handle any inquiries.
That’s the plan officials prepared reporters for as members of the media gathered in the lobby as they had so often during the president-elect Trump’s transition. The president had been unusually talkative the week prior during appearances at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and he was again ready to battle with reporters.
The Cabinet officials — Steven Mnuchin, Elaine Chao and Mick Mulvaney — and economic adviser Gary Cohn stood silently next to the president for the entirety of his contentious remarks.
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President Trump's staff left confused and frustrated after he went "rogue" during presser https://t.co/4CFPIRCHLF pic.twitter.com/01v4sdSojE
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 16, 2017
And by "went rogue" we mean "Trump was his actual self." https://t.co/1UsP3KHrsH
— John Schindler (@20committee) August 16, 2017
Trump has let his mask fall. This is who he is. There will ever more "new lows" until he's evicted from the WH. Have no illusions, peeps.
— John Schindler (@20committee) August 16, 2017
The President's mishandling of this weekend has aided and abetted the left in providing moral cover to violent alt-leftists.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) August 16, 2017
Bannon (aka Russia) have realized tRUmp is finished politically. So now they're trying to start a civil war. Blatant acts of sedition.
— Counterchekist (@counterchekist) August 16, 2017
Judging from Twitter, Moscow's plan stands a real chance of working. https://t.co/hSBgLEvgkh
— John Schindler (@20committee) August 16, 2017
They keep hiring & firing hoping the new guys can control Trump. It’s like a woman marrying a loser and thinking she can change him. This is going to be like this for his entire presidency however long it may last. What you see is what you get with Trump. We’ve been trying to tell people this is who he is since he first threw his hat in the ring.
To sign into Trump’s insane asylum is a career ender. How can these people be so dumb?
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