Four years ago to the very day, we were talking about Sean Spicer’s performance as Donald Trump’s new press secretary. Spicer’s first act in the White House press briefing room was to waltz in and declare that Trump had “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.” That was what concerned Trump and the Trump White House on their very first day: people mocking Trump’s batsh-t crazy Struggle Inauguration, which was poorly attended and fascist. It set the tone for what would be the Trump White House’s constant abuse of journalists and the media writ large. The relationship between the WH and the media became so toxic, at some point the press secretaries just stopped doing press briefings entirely.
Well, if we needed any more evidence of “the return to normalcy,” President Biden’s new press secretary Jen Psaki gave the first press briefing of the Biden administration yesterday evening. It was great! She treated journalists with respect and tried to answer questions honestly and thoroughly. She didn’t berate anyone, squeal about “fake news” or throw out a bunch of lies. As I watched Psaki, I realized that it’s going to take a while for all of us to process the trauma of the past four-to-five years.
It was just nice. It was fun to watch everyone adjust, in real time, to the new normal of “wait, this is how it used to be, in the Before Time.” No one screamed, no one called female journalists “nasty,” no one pushed a bunch of lies about crowd size.
In another example of the Biden Administration’s back-to-normal approach with the press, President Biden invited the press pool into the Oval Office, where he confirmed that Donald Trump had left him a letter and the letter was “generous.” Hm. President Biden also signed a stack of Executive Orders, many of which were simple reversals of Trump-era EOs.
Jen Psaki told the press after this moment that Biden was not actually planning to speak to Trump any time soon, so the point is that we’ll probably never learn what’s in the letter. Hm.
Day 1 Press Briefings: Trump admin vs. Biden admin pic.twitter.com/S5wd57YrSr
— The Recount (@therecount) January 21, 2021
Photos courtesy of Getty.
We watched part of it. It was nice and dare I say…..a little boring. Thank goodness. That’s what we need right now. she was respectful, if she didnt have an answer she said she would get one, etc. It was just….nice and boring, lol.
It’s so nice being bored 😉
I watched the whole thing. It felt SO GOOD to be “normal”. What a concept: REAL PROFESSIONALS DOING THEIR JOBS in a courteous, professional manner!! Almost forgot what that was like! And a promise to have briefings EVERY DAY M-F!! ANSWERING QUESTIONS!! OMG!! 😱. I am SO READY to go “back” to “boring” 😊 We ALL need a rest in that respect.
Yesterday was to celebrate, today, tomorrow…the weekend, rest. Monday, we get back to work to help secure the expulsion of the Seditious Six and, at the very least, the censure of the 147 members that voted to overturn the EC votes, as well the 2022 midterms. We’ve been shown that we need to stay vigilant to make sure the MAGAt culture-cancer doesn’t have a chance to spread again.
Yes. I mean we knew that almost every moment of every day in the Trump White House was a complete sh^tshow, amateur hour. But yesterday’s events and the press briefing really brought it all home. The contrast could not be more stark.
Boring is beautiful.
The whole world needs to be weaned off the soap-opera levels of drama that the Trump circus dished out to us almost daily.
Wanda Sykes had the best reaction to this:
https://mobile.twitter.com/iamwandasykes/status/1352052625827524609
I LOVE her pearls too!
Wanda has the best reaction to everything. We need more Wanda.
@ BearcatLawyer, yes!! Wanda was brilliant and she is so under appreciated! Yes, nice and boring. Civil, clear and to the point. Willingness to listen and offer as much information as possible. I loved the parody of Trump v Biden first press briefing! I testament and setting as to what was to come.
That was funny! I too was in awe that questions were being answered and she was calm and civil. There was no glares and rudeness from the person at the podium. Also it seems she has EXPERIENCE! Imagine that. What a concept.
Generous was a very carefully chosen word, and it’s telling that Biden said he wouldn’t say anything about until talking to Trump, when he knkw they won’t talk. I doubt the letter contained anything of value, unless he plagiarized, like Melania.
My guess? It was letter full of generous praise for Trump. Like, I did such a good job, that you’re gonna do a good job if you just do what I did.
Agreed.
I hypothesized that it simply said “I won.”
Breaking exclusive: Actual text of Trump’s letter left for Biden at the White House:
Dear Sleepy Joe,
Can you call crazy Nancy Pelosi and order her not to impeach me again? She’s mean and I’m too afraid to do it myself.
Oh and Cocaine Mitch isn’t taking my calls anymore, so could you ring him and tell him not to convince Republicans to vote to convict me? That would help a lot. I need my pension for legal fees. It’s the biggest witch hunt in American History.
Could you pardon me too? I deserve it because I’m the greatest President since Lincoln. But for some reason I can’t pardon myself. My kids would all like pardons too, but don’t feel bad if you can only pardon Ivanka.
Signed,
Donald Trump
PS- I WON. BY A LANDSLIDE!!!
PPS- can you call Jack and get me back on the Twitter?
BAH HA HA!
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻. LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Excellent!
Those EOs Biden signed are invalid. He didn’t use magic marker nor did he show his signature afterwards to demonstrate what a bigly president he is.
That’s what presidents are supposed to do, right? I don’t remember any other way.
HaHaHaHaHaHa! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, HaHaHaHaHaHa!
Thanks for the laugh. (out loud and long) I’ll be chuckling about this all day.
THANK YOU! (so funny)
I joked with my family that he didn’t show us the signature. Show and tell is gone now!
There is a shocking lack of false eyelashes, hair extensions, and stacks of empty binders! And this woman thinks she is going to subject us to this high degree of professionalism on a daily basis? I shudder at the thought of such competency. How will we ever survive this.
The news reporters all seemed positively giddy going into this.
As a federal employee it was music to my ears to hear that the Biden administration consulted with policy experts on the executive orders that Biden signed. It’s wonderful knowing that subject matter expertise is once again valued by the executive branch.
My husband and I watched it and were so impressed….we both had the same take away, you have to be freaking smart and on your toes to hold that position. No one in the last administration was smart enough to stand at that podium, I mean seriously, those reporters can ask absolutely anything and you need to be ready and poised. It just shows that if you give people respect, you get respect. We are all humans! She is a breath of fresh air, F#$K this whole administration is a gulf breeze! I’m so happy I could cry.
We forget how unhinged Sean Spicer was in that first press conference.
We forget how unhinged he was in general. Remember when he hid in the bushes to avoid reporters?
Yeah, that’s true but I don’t think anyone was expecting him to come out in this first press conference with so much aggression. Trump’s anger about the crowd size is why Spicer came into the press room unhinged.
Yeah, after watching that video I thought–that was the first, the very first press conference? And he chose to focus on crowd size???
Biggliest crowd ever!!
I’ll just leave these here: Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer. 😂😂😂
https://qz.com/1035892/best-sean-spicer-moments-played-by-melissa-mccarthy-on-saturday-night-live/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbhz3XcNzGU&list=PLfDyEyyI4P9T9AhlhUaXY3foLU3orl0A7&index=12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRFu0F389rw
Melissa McCarthy was hilarious!!!
I think we’re all going to be processing out our trauma as we now realized how very far from honest, decent, professional, and grown up we have veered. This is what press relations should be.
She is a serious lady with a serious job, but i kind of- i don’t- but it would have been funny if she did a spicer impression where she stated that the number of flags to attend Biden’s inauguration were the most flags to ever attend any inauguration anywhere PERIOD.
Which would be true (probably).
But i am still angry about spicer and the tone he set.
When he dies i kind of want to spray paint one of his lies on his tombstone.
I’m working through my rage.
It’s pretty amazing how he singlehandedly dragged the office of the press secretary into the gutter on day one, turning the position into one of propaganda minister for Trump. It is rage-inducing and I hope all the Trumpers who didn’t pay attention to politics or government before Trump tune in now to see how it’s supposed to be done. Not holding my breath on that, though.
Wow. She seems so nice, intelligent, well-spoken, and just NORMAL. I love normal!
@ Case, I know, doesn’t she? She seems relaxed, attentive and respectful. I admired her eloquence in handling the aggressive question about related aid in regards to alliance to abortions, which I found to be completely inappropriate, but that was my take. Biden’s first 7 hours and the religious sector is already on the abortion.
She worked for Obama! I saw her in the documentary The End about Obama’s transition to Trump on HBO Max. I think she was a deputy press secretary or communications person. I really recommend the doc by the way, really made me miss Obama even more. I think she had young kids then and she talked about how surreal it would be to do a press conference and then 15 minutes later be refereeing between her kids.