Interpreters Guild Rules President's Too-Harsh Admission And New Chief Of Staff Cancel Out To Exactly Zero

WASHINGTON—The Capital Interpreters Guild convened an emergency session Monday after CBS News reported that the president told 60 Minutes his administration's deportation approach may have been too harsh. CBS News and AP also reported that on Friday, the day the interview was reportedly taped, the president replaced chief of staff Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller, widely viewed as an architect of those immigration policies. The guild, which translates Washington phrasing strictly word for word, said bylaws required it to process both items in a single sitting.

Under the guild's literal method, the admission was rendered as "the correct amount of harsh, plus some extra, possibly." The appointment was rendered as "the extra, now with a parking space." "We placed the sentence on one side of the scale and the stationery on the other, and they balanced to the gram," said senior translator Delphine Okafor, 58, of Silver Spring, MD.

The guild's ledger, which assigns ceremony and substance identical weight, awarded the admission 4 contrition points for being delivered on a television newsmagazine, offset by minus 4 for the words "chief of staff," assessed at the standard weight of a brass nameplate whether or not one exists. A further 2 points were awarded for the president's reported view that a deal with the new Democratic majority is achievable, and 2 were deducted because, according to AP, he offered no specifics on what it would contain. The net was entered as zero in calligraphy, with the calligraphy scored separately at plus 1 and then voided as a conflict of interest.

Interpreters next rendered the reported deal into 14 languages, including Latin and a dialect of Finnish spoken only in procurement meetings, and every version came back as a blank page. Junior interpreter Tomasz Reyes, 26, was commended for fidelity after submitting the cleanest blank of the lot. "I added nothing, because nothing was there," said Reyes, adding that he had spent nine hours on the margins alone.

The guild then attempted CBS News exit polling, in which 58 percent of voters said the administration's immigration actions had gone too far, yet voters slightly preferred Republicans over Democrats on immigration, 43 percent to 41. After six hours and a flip chart, translators concluded that the electorate, too, may have been too harsh, though only somewhat and possibly in its own favor. The matter was referred to the Subcommittee on What People Mean, which last reached a finding in 1987.

At press time, the guild had formally described its own findings as possibly too harsh and appointed its harshest grammarian to chair the review.