I have to wonder what morale in the White House looks like these days. I mean the past month has been a pretty big barrage of bad poll numbers and lots of looking over shoulders. We have open leaks in the White House that contributed to a biting, quite damaging book by arguably the most trusted journalist of the past 60 years, Bob Woodward, and an anonymous Op-Ed in the New York Times from a West Wing Staffer. North Korea continues to do whatever the hell they want, China doesn’t seem to understand that they’re supposed to be losing this trade war, and are doing a pretty good job of attacking Trump where it counts: his base. And all Trump can seem to do is shout about how unfair it is. Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen are officially cooperating with the Feds, which I’m sure Trump can’t love, and he is doing random things like declassifying documents because Fox News Pundits are asking him to, without bothering to check if such an act might actually be more harmful than helpful. His Supreme Court nomination is probably the most contested in history, with it’s own FBI investigation to boot. I think this is what a downward spiral looks like.
Omarosa’s departure from the West Wing may have caused a bit of a diversity problem at the White House. Talking about Omarosa’s book on ABC, when asked by Jonathan Carl who the most prominent black staff member in the West Wing is, Kellyanne Conway struggled to come up with an answer. When she did answer, it was with Ben Carson, a person who by all measures is not a West Wing staffer, and Ja’Ron, an employee of Melania. Now, I’m not sure if she just happens to be uninformed of the general staff of the West Wing or if this is an indication of the lack of diversity floating around the White House, but it’s not a good look for the White House for anyone who isn’t part of the Trump base.
Rumors started circulating a few months back that Donald Trump had made his West Wing staff sign Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) regarding their work and what they see and hear during their time in the White House. Now, in business settings, NDAs are pretty common practice. Companies have proprietary practices, programs and Tech, and in general lots of things they expect to not have to tell the general public. But as it turns out, you can’t really do stuff like that for government work. Other than stuff that is specifically designated as classified, the public nature and expectation of transparency in public work is paramount in democratic settings. A few days ago, Kellyanne Conway confirmed that everyone in the West Wing was told to sign an NDA, and the question a lot of people were asking was “why?” And not just because it seems sketchy, but because, as many experts have begun pointing out, they are virtually unenforceable. NDAs are corporate instruments, and can’t be used to bar information that is legally available to the public. Freedom of information is literally a law we have when it comes to the government. I can only imagine what it is Trump doesn’t want people talking about.
Mind the Exit 