Former Bush administration official Scott Jennings made a banal but nonetheless critical admission to CNN’s Don Lemon on Monday night, telling the cable host that he had low expectations of how honest Jared Kushner could have been when discussing his father-in-law President Donald Trump’s racism: “To expect a White House official to go on television and trash their boss is not a realistic expectation.”

The broader implications of that excuse did not escape Lemon:  “Answering the question honestly is trashing?”

Lemon began his segment with Jennings and former Democratic Congressman Bakari Sellers by zeroing in on Kushner’s family relationship with the president and the charges of nepotism that have dogged Trump’s son-in-law throughout his time in the White House. Over the weekend, Kushner was the subject of an deeply embarrassing interview where he repeatedly refused to acknowledge the racism driving Trump’s years-long Birther conspiracy campaign, among other awkward denials.

While Jennings condemned Birtherism as racist and a “terrible time for the Republican Party,” he also sought to tamp down expectations that Kushner would ever have honestly answered questions about Trump’s role pushing the Birther lie.

“To expect a senior adviser to the president who is also a relative to go on television and call his father-in-law or his boss a racist is not realistic,” Jennings told Lemon.

“Isn’t that the problem, with nepotism, is that you don’t expect him to come on television, as the senior adviser to the President of the United States, and be honest with people about aspects of this administration and his boss, who he is an adviser to?” Lemon asked.

Jennings response was telling. “Look, I feel the same way about him that I felt when we used to go around and around about why doesn’t Sarah Sanders say this, that or the other,” he said “To expect a White House official to go on television and trash their boss is not a realistic expectation.”

Again, Lemon pointed out that the logic behind this statement presumes an honest discussion of the White House’s rhetoric and policies as well as this president’s personal resistance to factual accuracy would only serve to put the administration in a bad light.  “I don’t understand how being honest about an aspect of someone is trashing them? Telling the truth about what they did is trashing them?”

Jennings countered with a dose of what NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen has diagnosed as insider-y, meta-focused, “cult of the savvy” analysis. “I’m just saying to expect a White House spokesperson to come on and say something that we know is going to enrage the president, it’s not going to happen and it’s not a realistic expectation of our modern political system,” Jennings explained.

And there it is. A blithely candid acknowledgement from a Republican that when it comes a choice between being honest with the American people or protecting this president’s image and feelings, this White House is institutionally predisposed to choose the latter every time.

Watch the video above, via CNN.

from Mediaite http://bit.ly/2WekrdE