Tabloid wars honed Trump defenses against scandals
WASHINGTON – Ron Ziegler, President Nixon’s press secretary, called the Watergate break-in a “third-rate burglary attempt” — then it exploded into a wide-ranging scandal involving political dirty tricks, tax evasion and obstruction of justice, leading to Nixon’s resignation.
The Whitewater scandal dogged Bill Clinton for most of his presidency as an investigation into an Arkansas real estate deal spun off into inquiries into the suicide of a White House lawyer, firings at the White House travel office — and finally, Clinton’s affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.
Now, President Trump finds himself in the midst of a series of controversies cascading like dominoes through the headlines.
What started as an investigation into suspected Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election morphed into an expanding galaxy of scandals involving an adult-film star and alleged influence peddling.
Last week came revelations that Trump’s personal attorney made more than $1 million from corporate clients trying to influence the president — and that he funneled that money through the same account he used to pay hush money to an adult-film star alleging a sexual encounter with Trump.
Trump has decried the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt” but has been more circumspect in dealing with the allegations he paid hush money to an adult-film star.
After that actress, Stormy Daniels, gave an interview to 60 Minutes in March, Trump went 11 days without addressing the allegation.
Trump would prefer to talk about tax cuts, a recovering economy and his historic opening to North Korea.
University of Houston professor Brandon Rottinghaus has studied scandals from Nixon to George W. Bush and found patterns in the ways presidents respond to them.
❚ They give more speeches. Trump returned to holding campaign rallies, mostly in states he won in 2016. In a rally last week, he didn’t mention the controversies, instead attacking Democrats running for Congress. “Give me some reinforcements, please,” he told
7,000 people in Elkhart, Ind.
❚ They pick fewer fights with Congress. After a tax-cut package passed last December, Trump’s legislative agenda largely has stalled. His top priorities — infrastructure and immigration — appear unlikely to pass before the midterm elections in November.
❚ They take fewer unilateral executive actions. After signing 101 executive orders and presidential memoranda in 2017, Trump has had just 26 appear in the Federal Register this year as of Friday.
Trump’s defiant response to scandals is informed by his decades as a target of New York tabloid media: When hit with an accusation, deny it — then hit back harder against the accuser. And never apologize.
The GOP remains in control of Congress, and his support among his political base hasn’t wavered.
“The ultimate end of a scandal is impeachment, and if the president’s not afraid of that, there’s no sanction that can hold him accountable,” Rottinghaus said.
He said the growing complexity of the scandals can work to the president’s advantage as voters become desensitized and lose the plot. To his supporters, the media coverage could look like “piling on.”
One White House tactic is to insulate the president’s past personal behavior from the presidency itself, setting up an outside team of lawyers to deal with it. At least 27 times over the past two weeks, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders and her deputies referred questions about the controversies to the lawyers.