Several reporters were piqued Thursday evening by a county-level Republican official's one-liner cited in the Tennessean (emphasis mine):





[Pearson is] more ashamed of the way Democrats, the media and opponents have attacked her president, and she is disappointed in congressional Republicans for not doing more to help Trump. She applauded Donald Trump Jr. for releasing his emails about a meeting with a Russian attorney in the midst of the campaign against Clinton. There’s very little that would change her mind about Trump. “I don’t know what he would have to do … I guess maybe kill someone. Just in cold blood,” Pearson said.

Lest we forget that Trump himself said during the campaign he "could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody" and not lose voters; the ugliness of the imagery notwithstanding, it all goes to underscore the inflexibility of the president's support from then to now.

But there's another line in the story's passage that received almost zero play among the same set of media. If we're casting aside the meaning of sample size and using this one individual as perhaps an epitome of Trump's support, it's worth noting that the person "applauded" Donald Trump Jr. for dumping his email exchange with Rob Goldstone just before the New York Times hit "publish" on its report about the message chain. Recall that his decision at least befuddled, if not not inspired mockery from observers close to the center of the action in Washington, D.C. Was it an act of incompetence? Desperation?

Whatever it was, it allowed the Trump-sympathetic press and many sympathizers to control their some positive version of the story. For Bill O'Reilly, it was to highlight that the Russian lawyer with whom Trump Jr. met was a fraud. For many more, it was that Trump Jr. was transparent: a comment made by the most important person who could've done it.

"My son is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency," said President Trump in a statement on Tuesday. He repeated the "transparent" remark early Wednesday morning, 11 hours before the Tennessean article posted.

The voter quoted in the piece "applauded" Trump Jr., too.