Donald and his fans are basking in the glory of a Mueller report that didn’t deliver what his political foes were after.

Last night, he held his first rally post-Mueller, and he didn’t hold back, calling the entire investigation “ridiculous bullshit”.

There are a lot of people eating a lot of humble pie right now, even though we have yet to see anything resembling the full report, and that includes TIME Magazine.

Over the past two or so years, they’ve had a number of covers depicting Donald struggling to stay afloat whilst pictured at his desk in the Oval Office.

Here are three of the more (in)famous below:

That Stormy story could yet cause big headaches for POTUS, but for now, he’s singing in the rain.

On TIME’s Instagram account, there’s even a little diddy to accompany the cover:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

The most important result of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report may be to politically inoculate @realdonaldtrump against the many probes still looming, writes @bybrianbennett. By any historical measure, the #Trump presidency remains extraordinarily scandal-scarred. But America has now seen the President weather a massive investigation led by a widely respected prosecutor. Somehow, Trump turned what might have been a catastrophe to any other President—a sweeping inquiry into potential collusion with a foreign power to undermine U.S. democracy—into a rebuttal against whatever comes next. “The politics of what’s happened over the last few days just places the President in a much better political position than he probably could have imagined,” says Russell Riley, professor of presidential studies at the University of Virginia. Read this week’s full cover story on TIME.com. Illustration by @obrienillustration for TIME; animation by @brobeldesign

A post shared by TIME (@time) on Mar 28, 2019 at 5:18am PDT

Good thing they didn’t show him closing the umbrella, because we know how much he struggles with that.

The still, for those who can’t bear to watch the video:

The main feature in the latest edition is called “How Trump Beat the Mueller Investigation”, which still seems premature, but here’s some of that story:

“This is very good,” Trump said, according to an official present. Back at the White House, staff crowded into press secretary Sarah Sanders’ office to toast the result with a bottle of sparkling wine. Within hours, Trump’s 2020 campaign was making money off the news, texting supporters that Democrats had “raised millions off a lie.” Greeting reporters on a Florida tarmac, Trump claimed “complete and total exoneration.”

…A special-counsel investigation of this ilk might have proven fatal to Trump’s predecessors, yet the President survived it, stiff-arming Mueller’s demands for an in-person interview and attacking the legitimacy of the special counsel to stir up his supporters. By the time Trump sat down for a chicken piccata lunch with GOP Senators on March 26, he was also savoring the victory. Trump was “exuberant,” recalled Republican Senator Mike Braun of Indiana. “It’s apparent that it’s a big weight lifted.”

…Mueller found that Russia had mounted an unprecedented campaign to influence the 2016 election, spreading disinformation on social media, hacking Democratic computers and engineering the release of damaging emails in an effort to sow discord and help Trump win. The special counsel indicted 34 people and won seven convictions or guilty pleas, including from Trump’s former campaign chairman, his deputy campaign manager, his White House National Security Adviser and his longtime personal lawyer. By any historical measure, the Trump presidency remains extraordinarily scandal-scarred…

Somehow, Trump turned what might have been a catastrophe to any other President–a sweeping inquiry into potential collusion with a foreign power to undermine U.S. democracy–into a rebuttal against whatever comes next.

Probably because the bar is set so low, that not willingly colluding with a foreign country who actively undermined America’s democratic process is considered a huge win.

There is no doubting that round one of the Mueller report has gone to Trump, and he may have delivered a knockout blow in the eyes of the general public.

Still, a long way to go.

[source:time]