The “spray” is a brief entry by press and TV to film a few minutes of a White House (or other usually government entity) meeting to assist in creating a tv “package” for subsequent news broadcasts. The spray usually lasts a few minutes when the press asks a couple of questions and is then ushered out.
Not so with Trump’s White House meetings.
On at least two occasions last week, the spray lasted for most (if not all) of the meetings. The meetings were the first Cabinet meeting and the meeting with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.
At the Cabinet meeting (plus Musk) the press and TV crowded into the Cabinet room and just stayed. This resulted in Musk (clothed in black leisure clothes and a black cap) holding forth and Trump warning Cabinet members not to disagree with him.
At the Zelenskyy meeting in the Oval Office, the press and tv once again crowded in for the spray and stayed to record a fracas among JD Vance, Trump and Zelenskyy. Vance at first, then joined by Tump, excoriated Zelenskyy for ingratitude and refusal to end the war on pro-Putin terms to be sponsored by Trump. (Vance opposed aid to Ukraine in his successful Ohio run for the Senate.) I suggest that this Pin The Tale on Zelenskyy show would never have happened sans press.
At the top Trump cynically commented on Zelenskyy’s wartime-leader black outfit, a criticism not leveled at Musk earlier in the week for the black-and-cap outfit he wore for the Cabinet meeting. Unlike Zelenskyy, Musk looked like he needed a shower at that meeting.
Zelenskyy was thrown out of the White House after the verbal assault he experienced. It is true that Senators with whom Zelenskyy met prior to the Oval meeting advised him to avoid confrontation and remain cooperative during the meeting. It appears that he did not follow that advice.
Bringing the press into the Oval so much for so long is doubtless going to ruin the carpet where they stand.
More to the point, high-level and sensitive interchanges at White House meetings are transformed by press presence. The conversations and comments become performative political poses and nothing substantive gets done.
That was certainly the case with the Zelenskyy disaster. Ukraine is at war with the invading Russians. Both sides want to end the war but with very different aims. Russia wants a land grab and wants to invade again in Putin’s dream of resurrecting the Soviet Union. Zelenskyy is willing to cede certain territory to the Russians but needs security guarantees to inhibit their return.
As background to the Zelenskyy Oval debacle, there is bad blood between Trump and Zelenskyy. Trump made a 2019 call to Zelenskyy asking for dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden, a call that led to Trump’s impeachment.
Much is being made of a “minerals agreement” under which the United States would partner with Ukraine for valuable minerals in Ukraine. The last time the location of these minerals was mapped was sixty years ago by the Soviet Union. Nobody knows where they really are. Mining them will take a minimum of ten years.
The distorted spray is making it impossible to get anything done at the White House by discouraging the thoughtful exchanges of views that privacy is likely to encourage.