President Trump: Call their bluff

It's no secret that President Trump loves to be vindicated. However, it's difficult to achieve vindication without clarity. Here's how President Trump could clarify things, leading to his vindication on two current battlefronts.

1) Agree to talk with Mueller -- but only on live television.

The tangible results of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe have primarily consisted of two things: a never-ending leakocracy providing content for media hostile to the Trump administration, and charging people with crimes that don't actually directly tie into the conspiracy theory that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency.

As we saw during the campaign, nobody is a better advocate for Trump than Trump himself. His current surrogate on the Mueller front, Rudy Giuliani, is frankly a clown show doing more to drive up Democrat voter turnout against the president than change the narrative. For example, since Giuliani began weirdly discussing the prospect of the president pardoning himself on May 30th (why would an innocent man need to pardon himself, after all?), the Democrats have doubled their lead in the generic congressional ballot, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average.

The president should call Mueller's bluff himself. Don't wait for a subpoena. Don't negotiate questions. But tell Mueller to go big or go home, and he will talk with him on one condition -- that it's on live television.

Live television is the president's natural habitat and the environment that has done more to help his political fortunes than any other, whether it be a rally, a moving speech before a joint session of Congress, or disemboweling dissemblers in the mainstream media during a press conference.

Therefore, he should seek to end this endless probe once and for all, but on his home turf, not in a situation behind closed doors that could be leaked as a negative portrayal or with approved questions that will do nothing but provide further fodder for his political opponents by making it look like Trump is hiding something. If there's nothing to hide, then tell Mueller to bring his best, you'll do the same, and may the best man win with the nation watching.

Because other than the measly 835,000 average viewers watching CNN's imploding prime-time lineup each weeknight, the rest of America is tired of the story and wants to move on. So tell Mueller to put up or shut up, and to your face, Mr. President.

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2) Do a live interview on ESPN's WokeCenter, urging NFL players to give you a suggested list of pardons and commutations, those they believe have been treated unfairly because of race by the justice system.

Trump is already brilliantly headed down this road on his own as it is, saying on Friday "I'm going to ask [NFL players] to recommend to me people who were unfairly treated." I would urge the president to take it a step further by taking the initiative and going to the home turf of pro football's virtue-signalers -- ESPN.

ESPN's "SportsCenter" has essentially become "WokeCenter" ever since Colin Kaepernick first took a knee during the national anthem. It has been driving this narrative since before Trump was even elected. It's also a narrative that Trump has been using to kneecap the Left, because it alienates a lot of Americans.

For example, I noted the following during the 2016 campaign:

On August 26th when Colin Kaepernick began receiving public notice for his national anthem protests that have now spread like wildfire, Hillary Clinton was at 81% to win the presidency in the 538 forecast. She also led the RCP national polling average by 6 points. Today (September 19th) as these protests continue to make headlines, she leads the RCP average by only 0.9 points and sits at 59% to win the election in the 538 forecast.

Keep in mind this was well before any of the presidential debates or Comey's last-minute reminder to Congress of Hillary's duplicity. Literally the only major story at the time that was driving voter angst was the captivation of the media (led by ESPN) with Kaepernick equating cops with pigs on his socks.

So Trump should go for the money shot by asking these players to finally put their money where their mouths are. At a time when he's pardoning drug dealer grandmothers not even Obama would let out of prison, dam the river right at its source. Go right to ESPN's flagship program and tell the players "come now, and let us reason together." Ask for specific names of those treated unjustly by the justice system because of their race, as Trump is already indicating, but do it right there on the player protest culture equivalent of “Russia Today.” Certainly these college-educated players are woke enough to make their case as well as the booty that once broke the internet.

Trump cannot lose here. Either he puts it on them to come forward and they're found to be empty-headed ... err, -handed … or he's successfully reached across the aisle to find common ground on a divisive issue.