President Trump's White House is giving up a "scorched-earth strategy of publicly criticizing and undercutting" Special Counsel Robert Mueller in favor of cooperating with him, the New York Times reports. The hope is that cooperation will lend itself to a public declaration from Mueller that Trump is not a focus of the Russia probe.

Flashback: The president "has long sought such a public declaration." Before firing Comey, Trump was outraged that the then-FBI director refused to remove the "cloud" of the Russia investigation hanging over his head by saying publicly that he wasn't under investigation.

More, from NYT: