‘I Regret the Tweet’: Philippe Reines Half-Apologizes, Then Threatens Donald Trump, Jr.

Philippe Reines vs Vanessa Trump
Matthew Boyle
Washington, D.C.

Hillary Clinton gatekeeper Philippe Reines early Thursday said he regretted a crude Wednesday tweet about the wife of President Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump, Jr., but then threatened the president’s son in the same message in which he was supposedly apologizing.

To the president’s son, whose wife he was apologizing to for the crude insult he sent out, Reines issued a veiled threat: “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Reines also threatened supporters of President Trump, telling them to “shove it.”

Reines came under fire significantly from all sides after he sent what one senior ex-Trump White House aide told Breitbart News was a “morally repulsive” message to Vanessa Trump, Donald Trump Jr.’s wife.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeReines/status/994267848355794944

The message referenced a Page Six article from the New York Post that detailed how Vanessa Trump, while in high school, dated a man who was a part of a violent street gang. The article contained an interview with the man, and is one of a series of stories that the Post has run outside journalistic norms about Vanessa Trump’s high school life. Generally speaking, responsible news organizations do not publish such stories about a person’s high school love life when they were minors. But the Post has published this piece and several others, including one that contained decades-old letters that Vanessa Trump apparently wrote to the gang member back in high school when they were dating.

The tasteless articles from the Post have earned a strong rebuke from those close to the Trump White House. A GOP strategist close to the White House questioned why Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation would allow Page Six of the New York Post to publish such articles–opening up the company that owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Post, and many more outlets to much more substantial criticism.

“With all the problems that News Corp has had with their treatment of women, it’s shocking that they would allow Page Six to publish a story that is nothing short of a racist, sexist attack on a private citizen. Clearly Roger Ailes wasn’t the problem,” a GOP strategist close to the Trump White House told Breitbart News late Wednesday for the first piece on this matter, before Reines’ follow-up tweet early Thursday.

Former White House official Andy Surabian, who served as a special assistant to President Trump in the White House and was the director of the 2016 Trump campaign’s war room, told Breitbart News that Reines’ comments on Twitter were “disgusting.”

“Philippe Reines’ disgusting tweet wasn’t just vile as even Chelsea Clinton noted, it was nothing more than thinly veiled racist garbage and the media should call it out as such. Reines should be ashamed of himself for stooping to such a low level,” Surabian said in a statement to Breitbart News. “Hillary Clinton, Liz Warren, Nancy Pelosi, and anyone else who purports to stand for women has an obligation to call out Reines’ morally repulsive comments. This should be the last nail in Philippe Reines’ political coffin.”

For her part, Chelsea Clinton–the daughter of Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton–has rebuked Reines, calling his comments “vile.”

But Hillary Clinton herself has yet to weigh in on the controversy. Nor have other top Democrats like Sen. Liz Warren (D-MA) or House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. It remains to be seen if any of them will stand alongside Chelsea Clinton in denouncing Reines.

Reines was one of Hillary Clinton’s closest confidantes for years. A 2017 piece in Politico described him as “Hillary Clinton’s longtime gatekeeper.”

Vanessa and Donald Trump, Jr., are currently separated and going through the process of seeking a divorce.

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