“If that’s the lion’s share of the media coverage, sure, he won’t like that coverage,” said Matt Schlapp, a Trump supporter and chairman of the conservative group American Conservative Union.
But even those that acknowledge Trump could get frustrated with the criticism say the president has come to terms with what they say is inevitable: Democrats will always find a reason to criticize him.
“The die is already cast,” said a former administration official. “If they had witnesses, they would say he got off for some other reason. … It’s never enough.”
Trump has spent three years blasting those who have suggested he only won the 2016 race against Democrat Hillary Clinton because he got help from Russia. “I won not because of Russia, not because of anybody but myself,” he bristled after former President Jimmy Carter called him illegitimate.
And even before the trial ended, Democratic leaders were calling the trial a sham.
“You cannot be acquitted if you don’t have a trial,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said last Thursday. “You don’t have a trial if you don’t have witnesses and documentation and all of that.”
At the start of the trial, Trump appeared frustrated, blasting out a record number of tweets, many that singled out House Democrats for what he has dubbed a “sham” and “hoax.” By the end of the second week of the trial, though, he watched the trial less, according to two people, including a Republican close to the president and a former senior administration official who remains close to the White House, dubbing the arguments “boring.“ His tweet storms had subsided somewhat and he spoke less often to the media.
“This is a happy period for us,” he said at a campaign rally in Iowa Thursday night. “It’s a happy period, because we call this impeachment light.”
Trump was buoyed after his staff showed him focus group results in battleground states that revealed a slight uptick in his approval rating as well as rising Republican poll numbers in swing House districts, according to the two people.
“It’s over,” the Republican said. “It’s coming to an end.”
Several times during the past two weeks, the Republican said, Trump has recalled a recent interview he gave to veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, who is working on a new book.
Woodward asked the president how he could be happy during the impeachment process. Trump told Woodward that he had the greatest job in the world, and is blessed with a wonderful family and successful business. “What’s not to be happy about?” Trump told Woodward, according to the Republican.
In his impeachment trial, Trump was accused of conditioning millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, as well as a much-desired White House meeting for the country’s leader, on Kyiv launching an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Trump and his allies contend that the desired probe was part of a broader effort to eradicate corruption and uncover foreign wrongdoing in the 2016 presidential race, not an attempt to undermine a potential 2020 rival.
The House impeached Trump over the scheme, approving two articles: one alleging abuse of power, and the other alleging obstruction of Congress. But Senate Republicans have not broken with the president.
Still, Trump and his aides were briefly alarmed two weekends ago, when The New York Times published details of a draft of former national security adviser John Bolton’s new memoir that undercut Trump’s Ukraine story. Bolton said Trump directly linked the aid hold up to Ukraine launching Trump’s desired investigations.
But by the middle of last week, it appeared the Senate didn’t have enough Republicans to call witnesses like Bolton and calm returned at the White House.
„The ‘oh shit’ feeling … is gone,” said the former administration official.
But in some conservative circles, Trump allies actually wanted the Senate to call witnesses, arguing that Trump couldn’t be fully vindicated unless senators heard testimony from everyone, including figures like Joe and Hunter Biden.
Steve Cortes, a member of the president’s reelection committee, said he preferred “a full slate of witnesses” in part because he wanted “not just acquittal but rather full exoneration.”
In addition to the Bidens, people like Cortes wanted to get other long-shot witnesses like impeachment leader Rep. Adam Schiff and the anonymous whistleblower, whose complaint sparked the impeachment probe. The goal was to embarrass Democrats and show the public that the Bidens are corrupt.
And recently as the first week of the trial, Trump told reporters he would like his own aides to testify, singling out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, even Bolton. “I would rather interview a lot of people,” he told reporters. “Personally, I’d rather go the long route.”
Source: politico.com
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