Sean Spicer’s New Book Shows How Trump Cynically Used the Pulse Tragedy to Become the GOP Nominee
Sean Spicer, the liar who worked as the White House Press Secretary for 182 days, has just published a new book, entitled The Briefing: Politics, The Press, and The President which is being ravaged by critics for containing lies, factual errors and being an all-around bad attempt to salvage his crap legacy. The Sean Spicer book apparently reveals that Donald Trump, the most anti-LGBTQ president of all time, only mentioned LGBTQ Americans during his speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention as a way to gain the support of GOP delegates who’d pledged to never support his candidacy.
Before the convention, a group of GOP delegates signed a petition declaring themselves as “Never Trumpers” — basically folks who’d never support his becoming the Republican presidential candidate. In his book, Spicer writes that Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort and his helpers basically went down the list of petition signers and got them to remove their names “alternating between carrot and stick and sometimes bat” as a means of persuasion.
Apparently the “carrot” for the last stubborn mule of the pack, a D.C. delegate named Robert Sinners, was a promise that Trump would support gay rights. Senior Trump communications advisor Jason Miller promised Sinners that Trump would mention LGBTQ people during his convention acceptance speech, something no other Republican presidential candidate had ever done.
Spicer writes, “Jason assured Sinners that Trump would be the most ‘inclusive’ candidate the Republican Party ever had.”
So, in a fine bit of homonationalism, Trump said in his acceptance speech, “I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of the hateful, foreign ideology, believe me.” The mention was a reference to the 2017 Pulse nightclub shooting, a tragedy that Trump repeatedly used to hammer home his Islamophobic politics, a culminating in his anti-Muslim travel ban.
As you know, Trump and his Administration have spent their time in office rolling back LGBTQ rights as much as possible. So much for protecting us from a hateful ideology.
