President Trump will make Robert Mueller’s conclusions an integral part of his 2020 re-election strategy.
The Trump campaign is incorporating the Mueller probe into its topline messaging, spying opportunities to boost the president with critical voters and discredit the field of Democratic White House hopefuls. Many had aggressively promoted the theory that he colluded with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016, right up until the moment the special counsel inquiry revealed otherwise.
“Rest assured that you will be hearing about the Democrats’ collusion and obstruction lies and President Trump’s full vindication between now and Election Day.” Trump campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told the Washington Examiner.
In a summary of Mueller’s findings, Attorney General William Barr confirmed that Russia attempted to assist Trump in his campaign against Clinton, favoring the nationalist Republican over the Democratic presidential nominee. But Barr, in a letter to Congress, wrote that the special counsel, after an exhaustive 22 month-long federal investigation, had cleared the president of conspiring with Moscow.
Trump’s team is betting it can wield that outcome to corner the Democrats, forcing them to choose between an activist base demanding the party double-down on pursuing collusion allegations and rank-and-file voters who want to focus on issues. Republicans also are talking confidently about using Mueller to undermine Trump’s critics in the media and on the Left, and sew doubts about additional probes into the president that might arise.
[Read more: 2020 Democrats unsatisfied with Barr’s letter: Release Mueller’s ‘damn’ report]
So, rather than declaring a political victory on the topic of Russian interference in the 2016 election and shifting the spotlight to the booming economy as Trump accelerates his re-election bid, the president and his Republican allies are keeping the matter on the front burner.
“It’s time to take a look at accountability and all the actors that pushed not just the president, but the American people, into this,” said Brian Walsh, the chief strategist for American First Action and America First Policies, Trump’s designated super PAC and political nonprofit, respectively.
That accountability, a former White House official said, was likely to take the form of short videos, digital messaging, and Trump allies highlighting the conclusion drawn by the Mueller probe and contrasting it with the presumption of Trump’s guilt and predictions of his eventual indictment that were still being fanned this week by many senior Democratic leaders.
The Russia investigation cast a pall over Trump’s presidency practically from the day he was inaugurated. Had Mueller discovered that the president or his close confidants colluded, it might have immediately killed off his re-election, or worse. If for no other reason, Mueller’s report was an unqualified political victory for Trump and Republicans running down ticket in 2020.
The consensus on Trump’s political prognosis ends there. Some Republican strategists argue that Trump has an opportunity to reset his presidency free of the cloud of collusion. According to this line of thinking, the success of Trump’s record on the economy, an issue where his generally low job approval always registers highest, will be more naturally visible American voters.
“What it potentially gives the president the opportunity to do is really focus on the economy without this albatross of collusion hanging around his neck,” said David Winston, a Republican pollster who advises GOP leaders in Congress.
Other Republican insiders are less optimistic, believing voters’ opinions of Trump are irreversibly fixed.
They fear that Trump’s real problem has always been his uniquely polarizing rhetoric and unorthodox governing style, not Russia. And, with the president’s behavior unlikely to change and his tweets likely to continue to dominate the political conversation, some Republicans are expecting a continuation of the status quo since he assumed office. Under that scenario, Trump could win re-election, but also is vulnerable to becoming a one-term president.
“Most voters have already made their conclusion,” said Jeff Burton, a GOP strategist. “If there was a smoking gun then that would have been something. But this just continues business as usual.”
