Today the White House held a conference on opportunity zones. Because the president was running a bit behind schedule (probably busy finalizing his plans for his not-vacation to Mar-a-Lago this evening), Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin made an appearance to inform the waiting crowd that the president was going to be late. He also took this opportunity to implore of those waiting to not ask Donald any hard questions once he showed up.
After answering a few regulation related questions from the crowd Mnuchin stated, “I’m the warm-up act for the president, by the way. He’s running a bit late.”
The Treasury Secretary then quickly stated, “Don’t ask him regulations questions, please.”
Sensing that he maybe shouldn’t have said that to a room full of people, Mnuchin attempted to cover his tracks a bit, quipping, “But he is a builder! So, he may be very sympathetic to your building example,” as he pointed out to someone in the crowd.
The whole time you could see the nervousness and awkwardness all over his face and he tried to cover his own ass while simultaneously trying to make sure that the crowd didn’t ask the president anything that he couldn’t answer. It appears that even Trump’s Treasury Secretary knows how easily the president can make an absolute ass of himself.
Luckily for Mnuchin, Trump didn’t linger after the conference. He came in, addressed the audience, and then made a hasty exit without taking any questions — again, presumably pretty anxious to get his behind to Mar-a-Lago. We bet ole Steve was breathing a pretty big sigh of relief.
You can watch the clip here:
Featured image via screen captureÂ
