when he faced impeachment and possible removal from office. the president s advisers are simply flying blind, said one person directly involved in the planning. does that mesh with the reporting of the washington post, mr. rucker? sort of, brian. that s correct that there is no war room. there is no sort of robust operation ready to go. but that being said, white house officials i ve talked to have said that they have planned out for a number of contingencies based on what the mueller report may ultimately contain and what mueller may find, and they re going to be ready to sort of execute on that from a public relations standpoint. they have given it some thought. but i should tell you, i was over in the west wing this afternoon spending some time with officials there, and folks were much more transfixed by this college admissions bribery scandal than by the anticipation for the mueller report. there is sort of a strange disquiet in the west wing where we would normally think they
it. and then you see this other thing and you go, i have to question it and no one else has confirmed it. did goes back to things like michael cohen was in prague and mcclatchy is standing by that story. buzzfeed is standing by this and ultimately we re going to know. because there s going to be public hearings and there should be and that raises a question of whether michael cohen will be able to testify about this particular thing or whether it s barred as a russia-related thing that he can t talk about in his public life. all part of the string of these sort of unmatchable exclusives that news outlites have had. don, what does this mean for congressional inquiry? the fact that this landed an is now being scrutinized? there has to be a hearing. and part of why there has to be a hearing is from a public relations standpoint. so many democrats, including members of congress, who probably should have been more careful, took a victory lap. we were waving about the flag and it was abo
billion. we heard that. even when those around him in the white house, when mick mulvaney offered going less, the president publicly went after him in a meeting. so, you know, i don t see the president moving anywhere on this. however, from a public relations standpoint, you know, this done look very good for the president at this point. we re seeing a majority of americans in various polls are blaming him for the shutdown. i think democrats are very smart to potentially be thinking about making this offer because it makes them seem like they are willing to play in this deal. this major announcement, very interesting to see how this will play out. one thing that came to mind yesterday afternoon when he announced this, it seems like a tease for a reality tv show and i don t know how that will necessarily play with the american people. because there are thousands of government workers who are out of work or furloughed and that s impacting local economies and the economy across the united
are also being deprived of their livelihood. perhaps from a public relations standpoint, it is over the holidays. a lot of folks are going to be off anyway. a lot of this is a federally paid holiday itself on christmas eve and christmas day. the federal pay period ended on saturday, so folks will be getting a paycheck next week. so part of this is sort of there isn t that kind of public pain being felt. there aren t people out in the streets right now who are really visibly suffering and being vocal about it, although no doubt there s a great deal of anxiety and trauma on the part of some of these folks. that s part of what s keeping this in a very low key sort of low key way. people aren t really out there in sort of a visible vocal way. not to mention the fact that members of congress are scattered to the wind and we don t have them rushing out here in front of a camera every 30 seconds. let me get your thoughts really quickly on the right wing media s role in all of this to
activity that made them unfit. the president turned on the television, he saw what he did, and i just to say i typically don t weigh in on politics, but if you re a democrat or republican, and the leader of your party does something wrong and you can t muster up the courage to say it s wrong, then you re demonstrating cowardice that makes you worthy of the office. the white house and the president specifically like where this is going from a public relations standpoint. the president thinks this makes him long strong, we heard from officials and there are plenty supporting him. richard burke. the chairman of the foreign