It would all have been a lie coming from him — pretty much everything is a lie coming from him — but that kind of speech and that kind of approach would have been the start of completely changing his image and launching a formidable re-election campaign. It would have cost him none of his base, and it could have won over a portion of the middle, maybe enough of it to secure a 2020 victory.

But that’s not what he did.

Instead, he began immediately hinting at retribution, saying, “There are a lot of people out there that have done some very, very evil things, some bad things, I would say some treasonous things against our country.” He said that some of those people “will certainly be looked at.”

Trump has no idea how to ride a win. He seems to see every news cycle as him starting from scratch. He couldn’t even let the Mueller findings breathe before suffocating them. Within days, the Trump administration reversed itself on an Affordable Care Act lawsuit, announcing that it now supports a complete court-ordered annihilation of the law. For millions of Americans dependent on this act, it repositioned Trump as the destroyer and Democrats as their protectors.

The gun with which Trump keeps shooting himself in the foot has an extended clip. He will continue to do this because that’s what he does. By the time the election comes around, the Mueller report will be but a footnote.

Perform this thought experiment: Try to remember what the big news was around last March 24, a year ago Sunday. You can’t. Let me remind you.

We were in the aftermath of the tragic shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. The massive “March for Our Lives” happened on March 24. On March 23, Trump pledged in a tweet:

“Obama Administration legalized bump stocks. BAD IDEA. As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period. We will BAN all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns.”