With so many potential story lines percolating at the moment, I’m pretty certain that Julie Hirschfeld Davis wasn’t entirely thrilled to draw the assignment of covering the Trump administration’s preparations (or lack thereof) for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. But she certainly did as much as a human can reasonably be expected to do, essentially hitting a grand slam with her hard hitting and thorough exposure of a catastrophe in the making.
Here are some things her reporting uncovered. Sesame Street will only be sending one (unnamed) character to the event rather than its usual full complement. A typical White House Easter Egg Roll has about 2,000 volunteers. Trump’s administration might have two hundred volunteers. Last year there were 37,000 attendees at the event, but sources say that Trump will be lucky to get half that many people this year. Washington-area public schools have historically received as many as 4,000 invites, but they haven’t heard a peep from the White House. The same is true for military/veterans organizations that normally account for about 3,000 egg rollers. And, most importantly, the event is normally supplied with approximately 85,000 wooden commemorative eggs, but this year the Trump folks ordered them so late that they’ll be getting only 40,000.
How did this happen? What explains this rank incompetence?
Well, you might want to blame the absent First Lady.
Mrs. Trump, who lives in New York and has had a limited presence in Washington since her husband was sworn in, has been slow to hire a staff for the East Wing, which typically takes the lead on the Easter Egg Roll. She named a chief of staff and social secretary in early February but has yet to announce a director for the Visitors Office, normally the crucial player in the daunting execution of the event.
“You don’t understand what a beast this thing is to plan until you go and plan your first one,” said Ellie Schafer, who organized Easter Egg Rolls for the Obamas as the director of the White House Visitors Office from 2009 to 2016. “Every administration tries to put its own stamp on it, but the stakes are high because it’s such a Washington tradition, and people just love it and have very strong feelings about it.”
Ms. [Melinda] Bates, whose memoir “White House Story” documents the challenges of planning Clinton-era Easter Egg Rolls, said the event was a window — up to a point — into the competence of an administration.
“If you can pull off an Easter Egg Roll,” she said, “you can do anything.”
This isn’t all that Julie Hirschfeld Davis uncovered. She also learned that military bands will have to fill in for the “A-list entertainers like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Idina Menzel and Silentó who have performed for Egg Rolls past.” She verified that “members of Congress have not received word from the White House about whether they will get tickets to distribute to their constituents.” And, vitally, none of “the organizers of the Yoga Garden featured on the South Lawn during Obama-era Easter Egg Rolls [have] been asked to share their asanas.”
If all this wasn’t enough to satisfy your craving for solid reporting, she hit gold when she found out that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer donned a bunny suit for the Egg Roll ten years ago when he was serving as “an aide in the Office of the United States Trade Representative.”
Perhaps the only flaw in this piece is her failure to get Spicer on the record discussing whether he will or won’t reprise his bunny suit appearance this time around.
Yes, I know, the irascible nags will ask why Julie Hirschfeld Davis didn’t write about something important that they want to read about. The answer to that is because she wasn’t assigned to write about something important that they want to read about.
So, why did I write about this, then?
I wrote about it because it’s a great read and she deserves recognition for kicking butt on this chore.
If her editors did the sensible thing and sent her to Seoul or Moscow, we’d have plenty of good, important stuff to read.
Was clear from the start that Melania had 0 interest in being First Lady. Which is fine, imo, but its still a good idea to designate soneone to do the job. Traditionally then, Ivanka should be doing this, but she is busy trying to keep things from imploding further apparentlty.
So Tiffany Trump takes over the duties maybe?
From what I’ve seen, Tiffany wants no part of this whole Presidential monstrosity.
We can laugh at the incompetence displayed on so mundane and frivolous an event, but truly, it reflects the amateur hour quality of the entire Trump administration. They truly don’t know what the hell they’re supposed to be doing.
The only reason why I care about Melania and Barron living in NYC is the cost of MY tax dollars going towards providing them with the necessary security, etc. They really should be living in the White House, much as I don’t blame Melania for not wanting to be there.
This does display the complete amature hour of the Trump Admin. Yeah, who cares about the Easter Egg roll? But it’s indicative of the ongoing issues with these incompetents in the White House.
At one time I thought Ivanka was taking the roll of First Lady, which would have been fine. It appears, however, that’s not enough power for the Princess, so she’s doing something else (what it is happens to be unclear to me). So no one delegated the First Lady duties to anyone else. I doubt that Melania has a clue what to do, and it’s clear that she could care less.
I have many issues with the Obamas, but it’s galling to remember how the rightwing media visciously attacked Michelle endlessly for being incompetent and worse as First Lady. I may not have agreed with everything she did, but she handled the general duties of First Lady very well.
Will we hear anything from the rightwing – or any – media about this particular, admittedly small potatoes, clusterf*ck? Doubtful.
As always: IOKIYAR (or claim to be one).
Ivanka is busy advising daddy on foreign policy matters such as who, when, and where to bomb. That’s in addition to hours spent making her look camera ready and relieving the nannies are a few minutes a day to get the pics she posts. Appears to be good enough to keep women buying whatever unidentified persons manufacture and slap an Ivanka label on.
Marie, please! It’s Princess Ivanka unless you are an elite in the Court, in which case it is ok. So show some respect.
Can one convert to being a J.A.P.?
From what I’ve seen, Melania wants no part of this whole Presidential monstrosity either.
Maybe Jared can handle the Easter festivities. He should be free Sunday.
If all this wasn’t enough to satisfy your craving for solid reporting, she hit gold when she found out that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer donned a bunny suit for the Egg Roll ten years ago when he was serving as “an aide in the Office of the United States Trade Representative.”
Didn’t we know Spicer did this weeks and months ago? Haven’t pictures surfaced from this already?
Try to have some fun in life, Phil.
Methinks she was given this assignment in order to highlight just how incompetent Twitler and Crew are.
The idea of the story is to subconsciously sell theme that if this WH can’t get its shit together to do something like this, how can anybody expect it to get its shit together to do anything else?
It also highlights the fact that the Popular Vote Loser and his Legal Wife can’t attract people into positions that need filling.
Regardless of the topic, whether it’s the easter Egg Roll or the missile strike, what’s important to note is the ineptitude of this administration.
Understaffed, inappropriately staffed, ill-advised, uninterested and disengaged is no way to run a government. What the businessmen running the country have failed to understand or chosen not to understand is that government is for the people. It is rich with tradition and style and continuity. Trump and his cohorts dismiss the value of annual tradition and what it says about our country.
Conducting military actions without Congressional approval, conducting meetings without briefings, contacting international friends and foes without clearance…just more evidence that they have complete disregard for rules and protocol.
So ruining an annual event like the Easter Egg Roll is a big deal. It shows that they are incompetent, thoughtless, disorganized idiots. And it proves they can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.
Sure the Easter Egg Roll is trivial in the context of general public policy but it’s not trivial in the total lack of interest of the Trump Administration for the interface of the Presidency and the broader public. The fact is that Trump doesn’t care about the broader public and none of his staff do either. In fact, to date, their approach to the American public has been to give us the big middle finger salute.
Norms and traditions mean nothing. That is what this symbolizes for me. Lucky we’re not at Thanksgiving. Trump would ask the bird to pardon him.
I do not believe the donald has ever allowed Melania to plan any social gathering. Check out their 2002 Super Bowl party.
https://www.bustle.com/p/melania-trumps-face-at-donalds-super-bowl-watch-party-says-it-all-35735
Add it to Jared’s list.
Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way:
Just 2 million in attendance? Surely you jest. I heard it was at least 4 million, all ecstatically cheering in awe of their glorious leader with his glorious leadership skills.
Indeed, as Brian Williams would readily affirm. It was beautiful to behold.
Not to worry. It will be a first-rate, very classy, and the yuugest Easter Egg Roll evah. The Donald will say it in a tweet. And anyone that says otherwise is a lying scumbag (which the Donald will also tweet).
Don’t you just love it! Our deal leader is so predictable.
Only if we think like a thirteen year old of average intelligence.
Sorry, Booman, but you are supposed to be writing something about Trump attending a Passover seder and making foolish remarks. Or a bit belatedly about why he didn’t note Nawruz aka Persian New Year. Also, it’s truly odd and suspicious that you didn’t mention the French presidential campaign, unrest in Venezuela, Erdogan’s latest outrages in Turkey, or the troubled state of Serbian/Albanian relations. What exactly is your agenda?
WHy doesn’t he just outsource this to one of the foreign entities that handles everything else with the Trump logo on it? Nobody will know that it’s some Vietnamese or Malaysian guy in that bunny suit. And hey, I bet there is no shortage of Chinese companies who wouldn’t work their $.40 per hour workers for as long as it takes to shit out those wooden eggs. Why are we doing this for free, anyway? If people want to take selfies on the Trump House, err…, White House lawn with the Prez and First Lady, then they should have to pay for that privilege.
After all, only a fool and a loser would pass up the chance to pocket some coin in honor of the resurrection of his Lord and Savior, right?
I wonder if ICE is going to be trolling the Easter Egg Hunt, looking for little dark skinned children with funny names, so they can corral their parents?
Nah they got plenty of cameras and informers from the Klan around.
Humpty-dumpty.
Let’s not forget how horribly frightened children are of the current occupant of the White House. I’d be afraid he’d fondle them if I were a parent. Possibly, the school children of DC have been spared a traumatic event in their lives by not being invited.
#TrumpFail