Trump’s foreign trip mitigated problems
When Air Force One took off for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last Friday, President Donald Trump’s week already had been upended by four significant news reports related to Russia. By the time the plane touched down, The Washington Post and The New York Times had broken two more stories.
Leaving the United States did not allow the president to escape scrutiny. While he was gone, The Post reported that Trump asked top intelligence leaders to publicly — and prematurely — deny the existence of any evidence of collusion between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, and they also reported that senior adviser Jared Kushner’s Russian contacts are being probed by federal investigators.
Trump’s trip did divide the media’s attention, however, which for the White House might have been a welcome change from the singular focus of the week leading up to departure.
What’s more, the storylines generated by the president’s first overseas excursion were often positive or, at least, neutral. Sure, the press got a laugh out of Trump’s participation in that Saudi sword dance and first lady Melania Trump’s apparent hand swat in Israel. But those little episodes were not indictments of policy or temperament; they were just kind of funny.
Other scenes mattered more. To wit:
Saudi leaders welcomed Trump warmly, seemingly willing to overlook the president’s previous harsh rhetoric about Muslims, in general, and their country, specifically.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured journalists during a joint appearance with Trump that “intelligence cooperation is terrific, and it’s never been better.” That was a significant statement, because Trump’s disclosure of Israeli intelligence to Russian diplomats earlier this month might have degraded cooperation.
Trump and Pope Francis appeared to make amends during a visit at the Vatican, after trading criticisms during the campaign.
It is easy enough to view these encounters cynically: The pope was nice? Duh. He’s the pope. The Saudis were just focused on business. Netanyahu was just covering for his friend’s looselipped blunder.
A dose of skepticism is always warranted in such meticulously choreographed diplomatic situations. But the optics were undeniably good for the White House. And every second of grip-andgrin footage on CNN was one less second of “breaking news” chyrons that seem designed to induce heart palpitations.
Speaking of CNN, let’s not overlook the likelihood that yanking Trump out of his cable news cocoon was a very good thing for his blood pressure. Trump tends to veer into trouble when he watches the news — and reacts in real time on Twitter. The president maintained a no-drama Twitter stream during his time abroad, when he was unable to start his days with Fox & Friends, which seems like no coincidence.
Also, Trump’s foreign trip meant a hiatus for daily White House press briefings, which were becoming increasingly contentious before he left. The White House had itself to blame; that’s what happens when spokesmen repeatedly provide false information to reporters. Nevertheless, the trip temporarily eliminated one major cause of conflict with the media.
Now that Trump is back in Washington, the question is whether his White House can manage to use the trip as a lasting reset.