US President Donald Trump, joined by first lady Melania Trump, speaks in the East Room of the White House. Photo / AP
When three Americans freed from prison in North Korea touch down at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington at about 2am (6pm NZT), US President Donald Trump intends to be on the moonlit tarmac to greet them, with the full White House press corps in tow.
It will be a cinematic homecoming produced by a president impatient to trumpet a foreign policy triumph - and a prelude to the most anticipated tête-à-tête in years: Trump's planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
By making brash and risky moves on the world stage - from shredding the Iran nuclear deal to negotiating nuclear disarmament with the North Koreans to imposing tariffs on Chinese imports - Trump has a chance to change the way voters evaluate his presidency.
Trump is trying to convince Americans that they have good reasons - not only foreign policy advances, but also a growing economy - to protect his presidency from the threats posed by the Russia investigation, not to mention impeachment charges that Democrats might file next year should they retake control of the House in the Midterm elections.
For Trump, each bold stroke is like a spritz of Febreze on his narrative of domestic scandal, momentarily masking the expanding Russia probe of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Or the federal criminal investigation into his longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen.
Or his reimbursement of the US$130,000 hush-money payment to adult-films actress Stormy Daniels.
Or his support for Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt despite an avalanche of ethical lapses.
"Most of the coverage gets dominated by ping-pong ball sized issues, which are hurled through the air, but it misses the bigger point of the Trump presidency," said Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union and a Trump booster, arguing that foreign policy breakthroughs would be more resonant with voters than Russian collusion or obstruction of justice.
To that point, when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked last week whether Trump would rather sit down with Kim or Mueller, her answer was unequivocal.
French finance minister @BrunoLeMaire: “The international reach of US sanctions makes the US the economic policeman of the planet, and that is not acceptable “. https://t.co/cHosgd1ZwB
— Ali Vaez (@AliVaez) May 9, 2018
"I certainly think that the president feels like stopping a nuclear war and helping protect the safety and security of people across the globe would certainly be the number one priority of the president of the United States, and certainly, I would think, would be the priority that most Americans would share," Sanders said.
As Trump discussed the North Korean breakthrough at a Cabinet meeting today, a reporter asked, "Do you deserve the Nobel [Peace] Prize?"
"Everyone thinks so," the President replied, with characteristic embellishment, "but I would never say it."
The Nobel Peace Prize.
Letting that sink in is precisely what Trump wants - especially as he leads embattled Republicans into November's Midterm elections, where they currently are forecast to lose seats and possibly their majorities in one or both houses of Congress.
There was a theory to the Iran deal in 2015. There is a theory to its dismantlement in 2018. They are opposite visions of America’s role in the Mideast. https://t.co/UM1KUt4rzS
— David Sanger (@SangerNYT) May 8, 2018
"These events absolutely can make a difference," said former New York congressman Thomas Reynolds, a GOP strategist. "There's certainly people that say his approach to doing stuff isn't necessarily how I am comfortable, just watching it or knowing it, but he seems to be getting it done."
Democrats have a different interpretation.
"If he wanted to drown out domestic scandals, he'd have to stop having so many domestic scandals and so many self-inflicted wounds," Democratic pollster Margie Omero said. "That kind of recklessness makes it hard to separate Trump's day-to-day demeanour from his international performance."
Trump is not the first president to focus on foreign policy in a period of personal political crisis. As the Watergate investigation intensified in 1973, former President Richard Nixon tried to play up his role as commander in chief.
"Nixon tried to make the point that you Americans may be upset by my scandal, but I am doing such important things in foreign policy that you should think twice before wanting to throw me out," presidential historian Michael Beschloss said.
What was expected to be explosive Senate testimony by White House counsel John Dean that summer had to be delayed because Nixon was welcoming Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev to the United States for a summit.
A.T. & T. transferred a large sum to the President’s personal attorney through secret channels at the same time it was seeking government approval of its gigantic merger—and it has a great deal of explaining to do. https://t.co/lwe9a9s95y
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) May 9, 2018
And later that year, after Nixon ordered the firing of a number of Justice Department officials in what became known as "the Saturday Night Massacre," he opened a news conference not by defending his actions to intervene in the Watergate investigation but by updating Americans on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
"The tougher it gets, the cooler I get," Nixon told reporters.
Trump's approval rating stood at 40 per cent in a Washington Post-ABC News poll in mid-April, slightly more than his 36 per cent approval rating in January and his highest level in Post-ABC polling since his first 100 days in office.
The April poll found that over half of all Americans, 56 per cent, disapprove of Trump's overall performance. But a clear majority of those surveyed, 56 per cent, said they believe Trump should hold his summit meeting with Kim to try to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons; 36 per cent said he should not.
"The proof is in the pudding," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who has been critical of Trump. But, he added, "We know that most Americans simply do not care about so much of the drama that consumes the Beltway. It's all a matter of what results are produced."
It really is quite amazing that Mueller’s team had been looking into payments by Cohen's LLC for months before the public knew anything about the Stormy payoff.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) May 9, 2018
Trump has vented his frustrations privately to advisers as well as in public statements that he is not given what he considers due credit in news coverage and in public opinion polls for what he sees as foreign policy and economic successes.
Today, just an hour before announcing the release of North Korean prisoners, Trump castigated the media and threatened to revoke journalists' White House credentials.
"The Fake News is working overtime," Trump wrote in a tweet, complaining that "despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake)."
To shape coverage, Trump has taken personal control over the North Korean prisoner story, directing it with the showman instincts that helped make his reality television show, The Apprentice, a ratings success.
It was the President who announced dramatically yesterday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was en route to Pyongyang to meet Kim and possible secure the release of the three detainees.
Sr. European diplomat, on dealing with State Dept today re Iran: “All is a shambles there. Total incoherence between State and NSC. Plus, no one has any clue on the day after. There is no strategy.”
— Michelle Kosinski (@MichLKosinski) May 8, 2018
It was the President who revealed - "I am pleased to inform you . . ." he tweeted - that they were en route home to the United States with Pompeo and in good health.
And it is the President who plans to depart the White House in the middle of the night to meet their returning aircraft at Andrew's.
"It'll be two o'clock in the morning," Trump said at the Cabinet meeting. "It'll be quite a scene."
The high-suspense approach extends to his summit with Kim, the details of which Trump has kept closely held. The President said he had picked a time and location for the meeting, and added that the demilitarised zone between North Korea and South Korea had been ruled out.
"As I always say, 'Who knows?'" Trump said. "Who knows what's going to happen. But it's going to be a very important event."
The approach is a marked departure from past presidents such as Barack Obama, who oversaw several North Korea prisoner releases during his tenure but did not stage them as elaborately as Trump is doing this week.
"When you look at the Michael Cohen story laid out in the NYTimes ... I'll give some analysis from someone who grew up in Northern New Jersey: This guy is as mobbed up as Morrie “the wig maker” was from 'Goodfellas' - @SteveSchmidtSES w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/ODJk7UVK55
— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) May 9, 2018
There are inherent risks in Trump's foreign policy, of course.
He abruptly withdrew from the Iran deal without an apparent alternative plan to contain the rogue state's nuclear programme, which experts said risks war in the region. And his overtures to Kim could easily be stymied. "Everything can be scuttled," Trump acknowledged.
Ian Bremmer, a foreign policy expert and the founder and president of Eurasia Group, said there is high potential for Trump to misstep in foreign policy considering his lack of traditional experience.
"If you have the biggest stack of cards at the poker table, you can get a whole bunch of people to fold against you, all the time," Bremmer said.
"That's what Trump has done with the North Koreans, with the South Koreans, all over the world. But eventually your bluff is going to be called.
"That strategy works very well until it doesn't, and at some point Trump's number of wins may lead to a big loss."
The day before Trump jettisoned the Iran Deal, I did an interview on @AC360 on efforts by the Israeli private intel firm Black Cube to target me (via my family) & other deal proponents. Check it out. https://t.co/aZKWshJmlq
— Colin Kahl (@ColinKahl) May 9, 2018
It remains crucial to find out who hired them.
Then there is the possibility that no number of wins in foreign policy could compensate for destructive developments at home.
One year after trying to focus on the Soviet Union and the Middle East, Nixon resigned under the threat of impeachment.
"There is no example in history where accomplishments like that save a president who is otherwise in dire trouble," Beschloss said.
"They may help him, but not save him."
Fans fell from the upper stands when a security barrier collapsed.