PRIORITIES

White House Staffer: Florida Shooting a ‘Reprieve’ for Trump

Saw school massacre as a welcome ‘distraction,’ Washington Post reports.

According to a new report from The Washington Post, officials in the Trump White House are privately admitting that Wednesday’s deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, “offered a breather from the political storm” for the beleaguered president over the past several days. “For everyone, it was a distraction or a reprieve,” an unnamed White House official told the Post. “A lot of people here felt like it was a reprieve from seven or eight days of just getting pummeled.” That same official added, “But as we all know, sadly, when the coverage dies down a little bit, we’ll be back through the chaos.” Before the gun massacre, there was speculation in Washington that Chief of Staff John Kelly might resign over his handling of the Rob Porter scandal. Over the weekend, President Trump used the Florida shooting to criticize the FBI for “spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.”