On Christmas Eve, President-elect Donald Trump's spokesman and adviser Jason Miller announced that he will no longer accept a position as Trump's White House director of communications, as announced last week, saying he wants to spend more time with his family. "After spending this past week with my family, the most amount of time I have been able to spend with them since March 2015, it is clear they need to be my top priority right now and this is not the right time to start a new job as demanding as White House communications director," he said in a statement. He added that his wife is giving birth to their second daughter in January, "and I need to put them in front of my career."
It is unusual enough for political operatives to turn down plum White House jobs, but Miler's departure was accompanied by a string of suggestive tweets from A.J. Delgado, a Trump campaign adviser and member of the transition team, who deactivated her account Saturday night. Delgado's account on Thursday had tweeted "Congratulations to the baby-daddy on being named WH Comms Director!" and appeared to call Miller "the 2016 version of John Edwards," the former Democratic presidential candidate who had an affair, then a daughter, with a videographer, The Washington Post says. Before deleting her account, Delgado tweeted on Saturday: "When people need to resign graciously and refuse to, it's a bit... spooky," and Miller "needed to resign... yesterday."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Art review: Diane Arbus: ConstellationFeature Park Avenue Armory, New York City, through Aug. 17
-
July fiction: Summers to rememberFeature Featuring the latest summer-themed novels from Darrow Farr, Lucas Schaefer, and more
-
Why are flash floods in Texas so deadly?Today's Big Question Over 100 people, including 27 girls at a summer camp, died in recent flooding
-
New tariffs set on 14 trading partnersSpeed Read A new slate of tariffs will begin August 1 on imports from Japan, South Korea, Thailand and more
-
New tariffs set on 14 trading partners
Speed Read A new slate of tariffs will begin on August 1, with rates ranging from 25% to 40% on imports from Japan, South Korea, Thailand and more
-
Elon Musk launching 'America Party'Speed Read The tech mogul promised to form a new political party if Trump's megabill passed Congress
-
Judge blocks Trump's asylum ban at US borderSpeed Read The president violated federal law by shutting down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers, said the ruling
-
Thai court suspends prime minister over leaked callSpeed Read Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has been suspended, pending an ethics investigation
-
Senate passes GOP megabill after Alaska side dealThe pivotal yes vote came from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, whose support was secured following negotiated side deals for her home state Alaska
-
Trump sues LA over immigration policiesSpeed Read He is suing over the city's sanctuary law, claiming it prevents local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities
-
Obama, Bush and Bono eulogize USAID on final daySpeed Read The US Agency for International Development, a humanitarian organization, has been gutted by the Trump administration
