On Wednesday, the New York Post broke the news that Dancing with the Stars, the show where the country’s largest adult sons (Ryan Lochte, Rick Perry) go to redeem themselves, wants Spicer. No coda for Spicer’s turn as our reality television president’s dancing monkey would be quite as poetic as Spicer becoming a dancing monkey on reality television.
But the chances that Spicer will actually end up on the show are slim. As Politico reported, Spicer also had meetings in New York on Wednesday with news networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, some of which were for possible contributor-style positions. Spicer, who spent the last six months as the tip of the spear of Trump’s war on the media, might now land a lucrative contract with the enemy.
Spicer possesses a first-hand account of what it’s like to work directly for Trump, and so would be considered a get for the networks. And after having the worst job in D.C. these last six months, landing a lucrative gig would be good news for him. He could even use his new platform to crawl back to becoming the well-liked D.C. fixture that he once was.
But Spicer does not deserve the benefits of becoming cable television’s newest gossip. As my colleague Brian Beutler has argued, Spicer should not be rewarded for his thirsty careerism in service of the Trump administration. Spicer has spent the last six months blatantly lying to the public to prop up an authoritarian bigot. Do the news networks want that taint?