President Donald Trump on Thursday affirmed that he would still like to speak with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team for the Russia investigation.
“Yes. I would like to,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked if he would talk to Mueller, according to a White House pool report.
Trump has said before that he would like to talk to the special counsel’s investigators. In January, he said that he wanted to talk to Mueller’s team as soon as possible and that he would do so “under oath.”
Though Trump has shown willingness to talk with investigators, some members of his legal team have cautioned against it. John Dowd, who resigned from Trump’s outside legal team on Thursday, reportedly out of frustration that the President was not taking his advice, wanted Trump to avoid a sit-down interview.
Trump’s legal team has been engaged in informal negotiations with Mueller’s team about an interview with the President for weeks. They have given the special counsel office descriptions of key events pertinent to the probe, hoping that the information would help efforts to limit any in-person interview with Trump, according to the Washington Post.
Trump says that?
MRDA
But I’ve got these bone spurs that won’t let me walk to wherever they want to talk to me.
And hemorrhoids so no one can carry me.
And I’m afraid of TV cameras so I can’t do it remotely.
I assume he’s saying this (perhaps not consciously) to defenestrate and shame John Dowd.
It’s a pretty consistent pattern - get a subordinate to stick his or her neck out on your behalf, then snap back and leave them hanging in the breeze. I don’t think it’s even a strategy, per se. It’s just a reflexive, intrinsic part of Trump’s dominance ritual.
This means Mueller is safe or about to be fired no more or less than Dowd’s Saturday comments. It’s just how the snake dances.
Headline buries the lede.
Trump says he would like to talk to Mueller “like Beaker from The Muppets.”
What a coinkydink Herr Two Scoops, Mueller has some questions for you!