Every morning, before he watches the morning news shows, President Trump talks to a member of his outside legal team on the phone about the latest Russia headlines. The Washington Post reported that the 6:30 a.m. phone calls are "part strategy consultation and part presidential venting session," during which Trump's team goes over the latest developments in the Russia probe and talks through "their plan for battling his avowed enemies," which range from the media to Trump's own Justice Department.
But his team also has another motive behind the early morning calls:
His advisers have encouraged the calls — which the early-to-rise Trump takes from his private quarters in the White House residence — in hopes that he can compartmentalize the widening Russia investigation. By the time the president arrives for work in the Oval Office, the thinking goes, he will no longer be consumed by the Russia probe that he complains hangs over his presidency like a darkening cloud. [The Washington Post]
When the Post asked how that was working out, a top White House adviser "paused for several seconds and then just laughed."
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Read more on how Trump's team is adjusting to balancing governing with managing the president's "combative and sometimes self-destructive impulses" at The Washington Post.
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