Trump allies wish he'd stop melting down over the Mueller report

Trump’s ongoing public tirades about the Mueller report and its damning details of his activities are concerning some of his allies, who want him to shut up and move on to other priorities.

“A complete and utter disaster” is how one former Trump campaign official described the unbecoming behavior in a comment to Politico.

“It’s not a smart strategy,” a former White House official told the outlet, adding, “He needs to let it go. It’s especially not helpful to him, but he just can’t help himself.”

No, he can’t.

Trump started insisting, before the report’s release, that he had been fully exonerated. But the report, a redacted version of which was released publicly last week, details the Trump campaign’s attempts to secure Russian help to win the the 2016 election and Trump’s many efforts to obstruct the investigation.

His obsessive and erratic reaction has been over the top and an embarrassment even to his allies.

Trump spent Easter weekend live-tweeting his friends at Fox News as they pushed a series of false stories about the Mueller report.

At the White House Easter Egg Roll Monday, he fumed at reporters that “nobody disobeys my orders,” despite the report making clear that on many occasions, Trump ordered subordinates to break the law but they refused to do so.

Trump started his Tuesday before 6 a.m., throwing a tantrum on Twitter about issues related to the investigation. He even said that the New York Times would “have to get down on their knees & beg for forgiveness-they are truly the Enemy of the People” because of their reporting on his actions.

The next day, Trump showed his fear of impeachment, ranting on Twitter that the Mueller report was “written by Angry Democrats and Trump Haters” and added, “If the partisan Dems ever tried to Impeach, I would first head to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

In addition to being extraordinarily venomous about a report he claimed vindicated him, that isn’t how the impeachment process works.

In the ensuing days, he just kept going on and on.

The British government had to publicly rebuke Trump for alleging on Twitter that they helped to spy on him as part of the Russia investigation.

Trump effectively accused his own White House counsel of lying under oath to Mueller’s team while trying to deny that he tried to get Mueller fired.

“They tried for a coup, but it didn’t work out so well. And I didn’t need a gun for that one, did I?” Trump told an NRA audience Friday.

Americans haven’t been fooled by Trump’s bluster.

A poll released on Friday by ABC News found that 58% of Americans do not believe he told the truth about the investigation and that 47% believe he obstructed justice.

Only 31% believe the Mueller report exonerates Trump, despite his constant claims that it does.

For all of his public raging about the report, few Americans are buying his spin. And while those closest to him wish he would stop talking about it and instead focus on his supposed legislative agenda, his poor numbers are more likely to inspire further outbursts.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.