The president has spoken in the wake of yesterday's major news regarding a special Counsel who will investigate Trump-Russia ties. He calls the effort a witch hunt and complains about Hillary Clinton. It feels like a weak salvo in what is likely to become a war between the trump base and everyone else. Here is the first of the two tweets.
With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special councel appointed!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2017
The spelling of counsel as "councel" merely tells us that no one is monitoring the president's tweeting.
It will be roundly trashed but is not an essential problem. The essential problem is that you can perceive from the mention of Clinton and Obama that Trump is sticking with the playbook that got him to the West Wing. Nothing seems more clear now that we are about to witness a face-off between Trump forces and the rest of the world.
Trump's foreign trip
It has never been reported that Trump has hesitations about taking the trip that is scheduled to begin tomorrow. He seems to be going from jeopardy to an avalanche. Security will probably cost more than the trip itself, not endearing him to host countries. But is there any possibility that he is as we speak mulling over his options? A huge surprise would be giving up the trip entirely.
It is not outside the realm of possibility.
The weekend
Here is the second tweet that the president sent out a little past 7:00 a.m Eastern Time this morning. The weekend will surely resonate with the greatest witch hunt headline. It will signal his base to go with the meme. It will stimulate reams of media copy on past witch-hunts and commentary on historical events.
It is hard to believe that Trump will suddenly disappear from the fray. But how he plays the trip and the emerging reaction to the sudden change -- from chaos to the prospect of an orderly process that might take months -- is hinted at in the tweets noted here.
This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2017
Clinton and Obama will be seen as the real villains
Trump, if he plays by his own book, will circle the wagons around his favorite targets, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
The signal will be as always that he is the protector of white-power and the one who can bring it back again. He will tie political correctness around the neck of his critics. And he will hammer away at anything that will create a wall of news-dominating fighting over his attacks and responses to same. The past is what is to come.
Will Mueller make a difference?
These first two tweets suggest that Trump does not really care about Mueller. He is at war period. He will do whatever he has to do to fight back. His thought will be that he is bigger than the counsel. He will try to knock him out of the ring. That at least is the inference that can be drawn from what have always been the best indicators of the president's mind, his early morning tweets.
