New White House strategy: Deny collusion, attack Cohen, hope Trump stays cool
Tuesday evening brought a deluge of brutal news for President Trump — his campaign chairman and longtime lawyer both became convicts, and the lawyer, Michael Cohen, implicated Trump in a federal crime, among other events. But until early Thursday morning, Trump seemed relatively calm, and "the White House morphed into the uneasy eye of a political hurricane, testing Trump with each block of cable television," The Washington Post reports, citing three advisers.
"The mood inside the White House was grim," The New York Times adds. "But there remained a pervasive belief, rightly or wrongly, that things have looked this bad before." Still, advisers "admitted they had no strategy for countering the news" about Cohen's fingering Trump and no plan "to put a spin on the conviction of Paul Manafort."
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Earlier, Trump's "relative calm — contrasted with his more typical lashing out when he is anxious — unnerved some of his aides," the Times reports, and friends "pointed out that he has never been as cornered — or as isolated — as he is right now, and that he is at his most dangerous when he feels backed against the wall." The Post heard similar concerns: "Several Trump allies said that the president's relative calm on Wednesday was something that would probably pass soon — and they are worried about what the next stage could mean for him and Republicans."
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