What the president says doesn’t exactly comport with White House policy.
Contemplate some of the divergences from this week.
On Russia, President Trump continues to claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin can be his partner. At a rally this week the president noted, “I had a great meeting [with Putin in Helsinki] — We got along really well. By the way, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. That’s a really good thing. Now we’re being hindered by the Russian hoax. It’s a hoax, OK?”
Compare that with what the president’s national security team has been doing this week. In a collective presentation at the White House, they outlined persistent Russian targeting of the U.S. midterm elections. Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats explained that Russia is engaged in a strategic effort to “try to weaken and divide the United States … We also know the Russians try to hack into and steal information from candidates and government officials alike.”
That’s not all. Further confronting Russia, on Friday, the Treasury Department sanctioned Russian financial facilitators that are skirting U.N. sanctions on North Korea.
The situation is similar on the domestic front.
When it comes to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the president has been imploring Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end Mueller’s investigation. Sessions’ response? Crickets. Even Trump’s normally bullish lawyer Rudy Giuliani has modified Trump’s position by calling not for an end to Mueller’s investigation now, but rather for it’s eventual conclusion.
Or consider the congressional front, where Trump is pushing for a government shutdown absent money for a border wall with Mexico. Congressional Republican leaders? They have taken the Sessions approach to that idea. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last week argued that a shutdown is “not going to happen,” and House Speaker Paul Ryan has stayed hidden.
For another example, consider the president’s latest attacks on the media. Observing that media hostility has required her to receive a Secret Service detail, press secretary Sarah Sanders nevertheless implied this week that she disagrees with Trump’s assessment that “a large percentage” of the media are the “enemy of the people.” Of course, so did the president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump.
So what does all this tell us about Trump and his administration? Well, put simply, that it’s not what Trump says that matters. It’s what he manages to get his administration to do. Which, at least this week, is to keep calm and carry on ignoring him.
