Day 822: Trump is trying really, really hard to make everyone believe he’s happy
The Robert Mueller report was a disaster for Donald Trump, politically, morally, and even potentially criminally. It clearly indicated that Trump obstructed justice and his campaign committed collusion, even if cleared of criminal conspiracy.
Since Mueller’s team turned in their report, the Trump team — including attorney general William Barr, who ostensibly represents the American people and not the president — have been spinning, spinning, spinning.
“Total exoneration!” Trump decries.
“A win for Trump,” one sycophant after another declares on Fox News.
“Trump wins!” breathless headlines shout on alt-right websites.
But the reality is the Mueller report was damning for Trump. And Trump seems to have been wounded by its findings, remaining out of the public eye more than ever since its Thursday publication.
He fled to Mar-a-Lago in South Florida on Thursday evening, taking Friday off. He played golf with buddies — like right-wing commentator Rush Limbaugh — on both Friday and Saturday. He has eschewed press gaggles and answering questions, leaving them for surrogates to handle.
But an attempted narrative is being trotted out: he is very happy. Team Trump really wants Americans to believe that Trump is unbothered by the Mueller report, going far to sell that narrative.
Saturday, the White House Director of Social Media tweeted he had never seen Trump happier, in a message Trump retweeted.
Sunday, Trump himself proclaimed that he had never been happier.
Meanwhile, Politico reported Friday just the opposite: Trump was in an awful foul mood, and expected to remain in one for a while.
A day after claiming that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report had vindicated him, President Donald Trump was in a foul mood about Mueller’s detailed findings, lashing out at the Russia investigator and fuming about aides who cooperated with him.
Close White House advisers said they expect Trump’s hottest rage in the coming days will be directed at former White House counsel Don McGahn, a source of some of the report’s most embarrassing findings about the president. Trump angrily tweeted on Thursday that the report contained “total bullshit” from people trying to make themselves look good and harm the president.
Trump et al are trying to push a narrative of joy, when the opposite is readily apparent since Thursday’s publication.
822 days in, 640 to go
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