President Donald Trump made plenty of his own news while waiting for Mueller developments
WASHINGTON – On a day when all eyes were on special counsel Robert Mueller, President Donald Trump had a busy Friday of his own.
And his flurry of personnel announcements, teases of more to come and biting comments about his former secretary of state were seen by some as an attempt to get the news media to focus on something else.
"He likes to control as much as possible the news cycles and put out front whatever helps to minimize bad coverage," said Mark J. Rozell, dean of the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government.
But Republican strategist Ron Bonjean rejected the connection because Trump’s activity came Friday before Mueller and prosecutors filed expected court documents related to two key witnesses in the Russia investigation.
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“It certainly won’t distract from these reports,” Bonjean said. “I think this is maybe just the normal course of how they’re operating today.”
Through a series of court filings due Friday, Mueller and his team were expected to offer new insights into the two-year probe into how Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
The filings were expected to detail the level of cooperation that Michael Cohen, the president’s former attorney and fixer, offered investigators and the reasoning behind a public cooperation breakdown between prosecutors and Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign chairman.
More: 'He was dumb as a rock': Trump responds to Rex Tillerson calling him 'undisciplined'
More: As major developments loom, President Trump again goes after special counsel Robert Mueller
Trump started his daily tweets complaining about Mueller and James Comey, the former FBI director Trump fired who testified before a House panel Friday.
"After deep reflection on his tweets this morning, I'm going to speculate that Donald Trump is kind of worried about what we'll learn today from the Special Counsel," tweeted Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard who opposes Trump.
While cable news continued its all-day discussion over the significance of the filings and whether Trump could be in danger, the president made a series of announcements that shifted the news cycle, even for a short time, away from Mueller’s probe.
As Trump was leaving the White House early Friday for a speech in Missouri, he told reporters who would fill two key positions in his Cabinet. The president announced he would be choosing William Barr as his new attorney general and State department spokeswoman Heather Nauert as the next ambassador to the United Nations.
The posts will have major ramifications in the nation’s criminal justice system and on the world stage. Then, a third post was revealed.
Trump is expected to name Army Gen. Mark Milley as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military's highest-ranking officer, two administration officials told USA TODAY. The president hinted he’d publicly announce the post at the Army-Navy game Saturday.
But, the president wasn’t done yet. He captured headlines throughout the afternoon responding to criticism made by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, calling him “lazy as hell” and “dumb as a rock.”
Tillerson, in an interview with CBS News Thursday, called the president “undisciplined” and said Trump would sometimes have ideas that violated the law.
Jacob Neiheisel, a political science professor at the University of Buffalo, said he couldn't say if the back-to-back news events were planned or just partially due to Trump’s character.
“It’s really hard to tell when it comes to Trump,” he said. “By nature, he’s combative but we know throughout history that administrations have tried to control the news cycle.”
Neilheisel said that includes holding announcements and news items for certain times, especially “when they know bad news is coming.”
“Whenever you see a story coming from the White House that’s going to get some attention, we look at the timing of it," agreed Norm Ornstein, a Trump critic and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "It usually means that he knows something bad is going to happen that he wants to push off the front pages."
And Ornstein said the tactic works all too well in getting the news media to focus on something else.
"We’ve all had experiences with pets or young children of distracting them in some way with throwing a ball or following the shiny object," Ornstein said. "And I see way too much of that.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: President Donald Trump made plenty of his own news while waiting for Mueller developments
