"Playacting for journalists standing in an unruly huddle just off camera, Trump asked questions of the oilmen, wondering how soon they could suck the ground under Venezuela dry. "And you're very much set up for the heavy oil, right?" he asked at one point. There was an implicit cruelty behind the exercise. He wanted the cameras to see him place Venezuela on the table like a celebratory goose and start slicing."
"The White House press-briefing room, a small theatre for an increasingly sick show, sits atop what used to be a swimming pool. The pool was installed during the Administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who swam to maintain his strength after his paralysis. Today, the room is the central site of the Trump Administration's ritual humiliation of the American media. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, presides over the space, transmitting the spleen and the constantly shifting imperatives of the President."
Trump staged performative encounters with oil executives, tauntingly asking how soon they could extract Venezuela's resources and framing Venezuela as a spectacle to be carved up. The White House press-briefing room sits atop a former Roosevelt-era swimming pool and now serves as a theatrical site for aggressive media interactions. Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, presides with a placid, open face and a knack for switching between quick, scripted answers on technical topics and fluent, off-the-cuff denunciations on hot-button issues. Leavitt described undocumented people using extreme language while maintaining a small smile even when projecting anger, prompting confrontations with reporters over ICE conduct.
Read at The New Yorker
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