Tuesday, January 17, 2017

No Stars? No Problem! Meet Donald Trump’s Determined Inaugural Spokesman

Boris Epshteyn

As big-name performers keep their distance from our star-obsessed next president, one loyal man insists The Donald’s already landed ‘the biggest celebrity in the world.’

By Olivia Nuzzi

With fewer than 100 hours until Donald J. Trump is inaugurated as the next president of the United States, Boris Epshteyn, the communications director for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, is “totally crazed.”

Of all the painful tasks Trump loyalists have taken on over the 19 months of his meteoric political rise, Epshteyn’s is by far the strangest: to explain why it’s no big deal that the country’s first celebrity president—a man preoccupied by Hollywood, obsessed with movies, with talent, with glitz—will enter office in the least star-studded inauguration in recent memory. Hell, even George W. Bush managed to get Ricky Martin to saunter down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, crooning “Do you really want it?

But fear not, for Epshteyn has a compelling series of alternate-universe talking points at his disposal, intended to convince you that no, Trump really does not want it. And luckily for the soon-to-be POTUS, Epshteyn is as skilled a spin master as Trump could ever want after his campaign stint as a “senior adviser” and frequent TV pundit trained him, through trial and error, to hardly ever veer off a script of platitudes that make “Make America Great Again!” sound specific.

“Our message has been, and my completely full-hearted, convinced belief is that this inaugural, just like the campaign was and just like the presidency will be, is about the American people,” he told me. “That’s what this inaugural’s all about. So, do I—am I worried about the celebrities or certain ones that aren’t showing? No, but we have a lot of great performers coming—Lee Greenwood, Toby Keith, 3 Doors Down—and you know what? We have the biggest celebrity in the world, and that’s the American people.” 

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Source: The Daily Beast

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