On the day after Labor Day in 1973, Elizabeth Drew, a reporter for The New Yorker, told her editor she had “an intuition” that within a year the U.S. would change president and vice president.
“At the time, this was a seemingly outlandish thought, but I go a lot on instinct and I just sensed it,” Drew writes in the introduction to “Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon’s Downfall," her book about that time.
The Watergate scandal had not yet snared Nixon, but “there was already plenty of evidence that serious wrongdoing had taken place” in the administration, Drew writes.
Saturday also felt like a day when the country might have a new president within a year.
The morning began with Donald Trump unleashing a fusillade of tweets in which he said that presidents have “complete power” to pardon aides (and, perhaps, themselves) and complained about an “intelligence leak” that allowed the Washington Post to report that Attorney General Jeff Sessions discussed the presidential campaign with Russia’s ambassador last year.
He also blasted the “fake news,” despite sitting for an hour-long interview on Wednesday with The New York Times. “Look, I think he loves the press,” said Maggie Haberman, one the reporters who interviewed Trump.
The frenzy of social media followed a week in which Trump lashed out at Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation and hinted that White House aides are looking for ways to discredit prosecutors working for Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is leading the investigation.
Mueller is reportedly examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump’s businesses.
According to a Gallup poll published Friday, Trump held a job approval of 38.8% in the three months that ended June 19. That’s 23 points below the historical norm and the lowest such rating in a comparable period in the 72 years that Gallup has assessed job approval. (Trump’s rating in the first three months of his presidency also set a new low.)
The discovery on Saturday afternoon of old tweets by Anthony Scaramucci show there was a time when the new White House communications director thought two of his boss' rivals might make better presidents than would Trump.
“Odd guy, so smart, no judgment,” Scaramucci tweeted in February 2012 about Newt Gingrich after Trump said he would endorse the former House speaker for president.
Two months earlier, Scaramucci praised Mitt Romney via Twitter for a decision to “stay out of the Trump spectacle.”
Scaramucci deleted both tweets.
About an hour later, he deleted a tweet from April 2012 in which he called Hillary Clinton “incredibly competent” and expressed hope she might run for president in 2016. Scaramucci also erased tweets of support for “strong gun control laws.”
Scaramucci owned his decision to delete the tweets. “Past views evolved & shouldn’t be a distraction,” he wrote. “I serve [the president’s] agenda & that’s all that matters.”
So much for principles.
Still, in 118 characters, the communications director showed more openness than Trump has since announcing his run for the presidency.