Will Trump’s finest speech save his presidency?

Now he may be offering a different sort of deal. Instead of money for the wall, he may take the loss on that and instead offer an open government for the end of investigations. “If there is going to be peace and legislation,” said Trump, “there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn’t work that way.” And of course that’s right. For two years the Trump administration has been marred and defined by investigations that have found tangential crimes but haven’t laid a finger on Trump.

The general tone of conciliation from Trump makes a lot of sense in this context. If the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation does end soon, with no serious findings that harm the president, then the next two years will be very different from the last two. It’s not just that Trump will be vindicated, but that he will be freed from playing that kind of defense. He will be able to offer an agenda to Democrats who are no longer able to pretend they are waiting for evidence of collusion, or whatever they were hoping for.