Former Hillary Rodham Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines is under fire for a crude joke he made on Twitter on Wednesday about the wife of President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump, Jr.
Reines, while tweeting out a link to a salacious New York Post Page Six story about an ex-boyfriend of Vanessa Trump, made comments for which he is being admonished nearly universally.
https://twitter.com/PhilippeReines/status/994267848355794944
The Page Six story details how Vanessa Trump, when in high school, dated a man who was part of a violent street gang. The tasteless story from Page Six–it is unusual for a news outlet to run a piece like this about someone’s time as a minor during their high school years–has drawn fire from Republicans close to the White House. One GOP strategist close to the Trump White House was shocked and dismayed that the New York Post would run such a piece, and said it signals a larger problem inside Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation–which owns the Post. “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,” the GOP strategist said.
While the Post is facing its own questions over the story’s publication–which came complete with an interview with Vanessa Trump’s ex-boyfriend from her high school days–it’s Reines who is catching the vast majority of flack for what he tweeted about the piece. A former Trump White House official, Andy Surabian, is calling on top Democrats to publicly disavow Reines for his “morally repulsive” behavior.
“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, a former special assistant to President Trump who served as the director of the Trump campaign’s war room in 2016, told 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.”
Chelsea Clinton, Hillary and Bill Clinton’s daughter, has already called out Reines for his tweet.
This man was the Press Secretary and a Senior Advisor to Hillary Clinton. @PhilippeReines was also the spokesman for @ChelseaClinton. I wonder how they feel about this tweet from Philippe? pic.twitter.com/NFWcfHe0ns
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) May 9, 2018
It’s vile. https://t.co/K2xgl6CC1F
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) May 9, 2018
But Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Warren, and most other top Democrats remain silent on the vile commentary from the man Politico described last year as “Hillary Clinton’s longtime gatekeeper.”
Donald Trump, Jr., and Vanessa Trump are separated right now and going through the divorce process.
“After 12 years of marriage, we have decided to go our separate ways,” they said in a joint statement in mid-March per the New York Times. “We will always have tremendous respect for each other and our families. We have five beautiful children together and they remain our top priority. We ask for your privacy during this time.”
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