UPDATE: Reince Priebus Totally Did Not Whiff On a Sports Metaphor After Health Care Bill Passage (But People Thought He Did)
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus became the latest notable Washington figure to bungle a sports reference on Thursday, when he told Molly Hooper of The Hill that President Donald Trump “stepped up and helped punt the ball into the end zone.”
.@Reince exiting gop cloakroom tells me: “The president stepped up and helped punt the ball into the end zone.”
— Molly Hooper (@mollyhooper) May 4, 2017
As any football fan knows, it is NOT the goal of a punter to kick the ball into the end zone — as doing so results in a touchback, which ends up with the ball being brought out to the 20-yard line. A punter generally wants to do better than that by either kicking it out of bounds or having a teammate down it somewhere inside the 5 or 10.
Naturally, Twitter let Priebus have it.
@mollyhooper @jslovegrove Isn't that a touchback?
— Mede Nix (@medenix) May 4, 2017
As Reince might say, this is like taking a knee on the court with five innings left in the first period.
— Stefan Becket (@becket) May 4, 2017
Reince tomorrow: Boy, Trump really fouled one off for the team! #moron
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) May 4, 2017
@mollyhooper @Reince So the ball is now back in the Democrats' hands at the 25 yard line?
— Mark Potts (@mrmarkpotts) May 4, 2017
@byronacampbell @mollyhooper @Reince "The president stepped up and bowled a home run" RP
— Brian Bowe (@brianbowe) May 4, 2017
@EricBoehlert I sense a #ReinceSportsMetaphors hashtag in the making…
— Michael Rapoport (@rapoportwsj) May 4, 2017
Cheer up, Reince. You can’t always put the ball through the basketball ring.
UPDATE 6:01 p.m. ET — Reince is off the hook! Molly Hooper, the reporter who spoke to Priebus, is now saying that she misquoted him.
.@Reince .@reince said "punch" the ball! Correction! Went back to relisten to audio (for 4th time) and heard the "Ch" ?apologies sportfans& @Reince
— Molly Hooper (@mollyhooper) May 4, 2017
[image via screengrab]
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