The Trump administration’s frequent departures from normal procedure have had “a lingering effect” on the way people view presidential norms, said White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates. That includes scrutinizing the president as well as White House communications. [Transcript]

“I think that we’re always trying to resolve that and remind people what actually is normal,” Bates said.

Bates said because polarization has increased, the White House has augmented its idea of what constitutes a good approval rating. “The ceiling on what any president’s approval rating can be is just going to be lower than it was for a lot of our history,” he said.

He said despite Biden’s relatively low approval rating, Democrats performed better than expected in the midterm elections.

As a tip for reporters, Bates said reporters should keep their requests direct.

“Any one of us are triaging more requests than we’re going to be able to deal with every day,” he said. “So it benefits you a lot to just be very clear.”

He said communications staffers care about the substance of the policy they brief reporters on, so they will likely be more responsive to policy-based requests than questions about messaging.

“People that work here are passionate about the agenda,” he said. “You don’t really stay around and do this kind of work when you can make more money elsewhere, unless that’s the case.”

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