But perhaps most important, some of the key people who would normally try to dissuade Trump from signing a big-spending deal were distracted by the Mueller hearings.

Sources familiar told me that Republican Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan tried to talk Trump out of the budget deal but didn’t throw as much weight into the effort as they could have because they were preoccupied with preparing for Mueller’s congressional testimony.

Meadows is not on either of the committees that questioned Mueller, but did sit in the audience during the first hearing, had a behind-the-scenes role in the hearing preparation, and made lots of Fox News appearances about it.

Fox hosts, including Sean Hannity and Pete Hegseth, also focused on Mueller and didn’t try to rally the Republican base against the deal. Hegseth didn’t tweet about it once.