Melania Trump capped off a pretty weird week with #jacketgate
Updated
"I really don't care. Do u?"
And so began #jacketgate, a story more representative of 2018 than ever before, in which the Trump administration turned a positive into a negative at the close of a particularly fraught week.
Melania Trump, aka FLOTUS — who has made child rights her mission as First Lady — decided to visit McAllen on the Texan border with Mexico so she could get a true sense of the situation involving children in detention and separated families.
This, of course, follows the global furore over the President's decision to split migrant children and parents crossing the border — a policy since reversed, apparently in part due to Melania's representations on the issue.
Melania, on said humanitarian mission, chose to wear an olive green, circa 2016 Zara parka (retail $US39) with the words "I really don't care. Do u?" scrawled on the back.
The wardrobe choice left many pondering what she might have meant by the fashion statement.
"No hidden message" her spokesperson says.
Really?
"After today's important visit to Texas, I hope the media isn't going to choose to focus on her wardrobe."
Well, what a choice for today.
Social media is aflame as people assume she doesn't care about the migrants.
Although, why would she go if she could care less about the kids?
It would not be the first time the First Lady's wardrobe choice has come under scrutiny. Who could forget the backlash after she toured flood-devastated Houston in a pair of black stilettos last August?
At least one pundit suggested it's "unbelievable" FLOTUS and her advisers would not foresee a similar reaction amid another moment of intense national attention.
But if there's a deeper message here, it seems POTUS is likely close to the mark:
Donald Trump is also the king of distraction, remember?
Speaking of the Commander in Chief, he's done it again; been extreme, tested the reaction, wound it back just enough to be tolerable, and ended up with something that in a previous life would not have been acceptable, because the benchmarks have shifted.
It's Trump 101.
Sure, he "backflipped" on a policy to separate families at the border that he claimed he never had, but he's still pursuing a 'zero tolerance' approach to illegal immigration and will try to push legal changes through congress to allow families to be detained together long term.
This is something previous presidents were unable to get away with and it may well not be possible — see here.
However, it's more humane than separating kids from their parents so some may suddenly find it palatable.
From the outside looking in, it may appear the President has had a terrible week, amid enormous pushback over the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents.
Certainly, from the perspective of his critics, that's true, and they will argue political pressure and concern about a mid-terms backlash drove the backflip.
However, Donald Trump was elected, in part, due to his hardline stance on border protection.
From the viewpoint of his supporters, he was delivering what he promised, partly to deter people from jumping the border, and partly to get political leverage (funding) for his border wall.
His base will applaud that, along with the fact he has now shown a human face by recognising the plight of the children.
Any softening of his stance will be blamed directly on Democrats, moderate Republicans and the so-called mainstream press (whatever that actually means).
There are a couple of key outstanding issues:
- How exactly will kids and parents that have already been split be reunited?
- And again, can the administration get its plan to hold families in groups through congress and a likely series of legal challenges, not to mention a system that is not set up to allow that to work?
One definite upside is that children won't, as a rule, be taken from their parents from here on, although the executive order leaves scope to do so if it can be justified.
It was a pretty weird week
Notable was the flip flopping, fibbing and fiddly talk from various members of the administration about whether family separation was an actual policy, or not.
Attorney-General Jeff Sessions and Director of Homeland Security Kirsten Nielsen turned it all back on the media (because, obviously) accusing the press of lying about the fact children were being forcibly separated and caged.
They had help:
I know.
Nielsen fronted the White House Press Corps to talk about it, even though it still supposedly wasn't policy, just after ProPublica released an audio recording of distressed children who had been taken from their parents.
Keeping up?
Olivia Nuzzi of NYMag then rolled the audio in the briefing, which Nielsen either didn't hear or ignored.
Quite a moment.
Rolling Stone explains how it unfolded here.
The next day when Nielsen went to dinner at a Mexican Restaurant in DC, protesters stormed it, which was probably not the best approach.
Funny though, how various members of the administration decided to eat Mexican this week.
Oh and FYI — in the middle of it all, the US withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council.
And it was first Fathers' Day and then World Refugee Day.
Timing, right?
So, after more than a week of blaming Democrats and Congress for the separation of families and claiming the Executive branch couldn't do anything to change the "law," President Trump signed an Executive Order (which actually wasn't necessary to make the change) in front of cameras.
The President then held a rally in Minnesota where he studiously avoided the subject of immigration and instead railed about who gets to be called an elite.
So, after all of that, here's the cover of Time:
ICYMI
- These parents hoped to raise $1,500 for separated migrant families. Pledges now total $15 million.
- Koko The Gorilla Dies having redrawn The Lines Of Animal-Human Communication
- Trump has directed the US military to establish a Space Force
- TV Star Seth Macfarlane from Family Guy, among other things, donated millions to NPR after saying he was embarrassed to work for Fox
- President Donald Trump directed the US Trade Representative's office to draw up a list of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods to subject to an additional 10% tariff.
What I'm reading
- Master of celebrity: Trump
- Analysis: Zillow Shows Rising Seas Threaten Over 300,000 Homes
- The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy: The class divide is already toxic, and is fast becoming unbridgeable. You're probably part of the problem
- 'Today I renounce my membership': Longtime GOP strategist Steve Schmidt announces he's leaving the party
It's been another one of those weeks in America and my plane from the US-Mexico border is about to touch down in DC.
Until next week, muchas gracias.
Topics: donald-trump, world-politics, government-and-politics, immigration, united-states
First posted
