Sean Spicer’s second press conference (23 Jan) was considerably better than the first one. His tone was much more moderated and he seemed more in command of the proceedings. Oddly, he called on the New York Post first, which I understand in some circles is considered a newspaper.
One rather obvious thing I noticed about Spicer’s second press conference: Everyone asked really good questions about Trump’s plans and policies … except the major television news networks. They all insisted on talking about the inauguration crowd and “alternative facts.” (Spicer walked back his comments from Saturday quite a bit, by the way, admitting that he had given incorrect facts regarding the Metro–you’d never know that by looking at Twitter.)
Executive Actions
Here are some brief comments on the president’s actions thus far (that page is blank for me in Chrome).
On ACA (20 Jan): This seems more like a feel-good action to me, ie. catnip for Republicans. Just done so he can say that he fulfilled a campaign promise. Congress is the one who actually has to change the ACA, and they will need Democratic votes to do it.
On No New Regulations (20 Jan): I don’t fully understand the purpose of this one. Presumably there was some regulation or regulations in the pipeline that Trump did not want to go through without further evaluation.
On Mexico City (23 Jan): I don’t know enough about this to comment. I have no idea what is happening in Mexico City. However I suspect that Mike Pence had a great deal to do with this. I don’t think Trump gives a whit about abortion.
On TPP (23 Jan): My understanding is that Congress was well on the way toward killing TPP anyway, and Trump’s order is moot. Basically he’s taking credit for killing something that was already dead.
On Hiring Freeze (23 Jan): Whatever. It’s another feel-good policy, catnip for Republicans. There’s language in there that basically says, “But if you really need to hire someone, go ahead.”
On Pipelines (24 Jan): I don’t have much of a dog in this fight. I don’t live where the pipelines are going to be. With only the briefest of glances several months back on #NoDAPL, it appeared that Big Oil had done their due diligence, but if I did live there, I’m sure I’d be really mad about it too. On the other hand, my car doesn’t go anywhere without gasoline.
Repeal And Replace Theatre
By the way, I happened to see Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-MA) and Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R-LA) briefing on the Senate Republican plan to replace the ACA, which they called the Patient Freedom Act. I know nothing about healthcare and insurance, but it sounded okay to me. Those two seem like reasonable Republicans. A key component of the plan was allowing states to continue using Obamacare if they wished, which sounds like a clever way to get enough votes to pass it.
