Playbook: “Why? Because we’re about to get a ton of new information about the president and how he conducts business. There will be tons new here, no matter how much is redacted. The president has the ability to plow through precarious situations by talking about what he wants to talk about, and his base sticks with him. Trump will be at Mar-a-Lago by this evening.”

“But remember: This is just the beginning of a long, protracted legal and political process. Dems will fight for fewer redactions, and seem certain to call Mueller and Barr to the Hill to testify.”

Here’s what to expect: Attorney General William Barr will hold a press conference on the Mueller report at 9:30 am ET and President Trump hinted he might hold one of his own after that. A redacted version of the report will be delivered to Capitol Hill between 11 am ET and 12 pm ET.

“Democratic members of Congress raised concerns about the timing of the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, blasting the Justice Department for preparing to release the report only after a press conference by Attorney General William Barr,” CBS News reports.

“Barr will speak to the press about the report Thursday morning before it’s delivered to Capitol Hill, where it’s expected between 11 a.m. and noon.”

“The Justice Department plans to release a lightly redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s 400-page report Thursday, offering a granular look at the ways in which President Trump was suspected of having obstructed justice,” the Washington Post reports.

“The report — the general outlines of which the Justice Department has briefed the White House on — will reveal that Mueller decided he could not come to a conclusion on the question of obstruction because it was difficult to determine Trump’s intent and some of his actions could be interpreted innocently… But it will offer a detailed blow-by-blow of his alleged conduct — analyzing tweets, private threats and other episodes at the center of Mueller’s inquiry.”

New York Times: “A sense of paranoia is taking hold among some of Mr. Trump’s aides, some of whom fear his backlash more than the findings themselves, the people said. The report might make clear which of Mr. Trump’s current and former advisers spoke to the special counsel, how much they said and how much damage they did to the president — providing a kind of road map for retaliation.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin plans to hire Fox News commentator Monica Crowley as his top spokeswoman, Bloomberg reports, “as he seeks to tout the GOP’s tax cuts and navigate Democrats’ demands for the president’s tax returns.”

Jeffrey Engel: “The Constitution’s authors wouldn’t have needed any summary of the special counsel’s report to know it was time to impeach the president. Neither would they have waited to see whether its full text provided evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The group that created our nation’s founding document would already have judged Donald Trump unfit for office — and removed him — because he’s repeatedly shown a dearth of the quality they considered paramount in a president: a willingness to put national interest above his own.”

Greg Sargent: “It’s a pathology of this presidency that continues to go under-examined: Donald Trump simply does not recognize that his role as president confers on him any institutional obligation towards the American people of any kind.”

A new Monmouth poll finds President Trump’s overall job rating at 40% approve and 54% disapprove.

“This result stands at the lower end of his typical job rating in Monmouth’s polling. Approval has tended to range from 39% to 44% and disapproval from 49% to 54% since he took office with a few exceptions – specifically, a more even 43% to 46% split in March 2017 and June 2018 and a low of 32% to 56% in December 2017. The president’s job rating with different partisan groups currently stands at 83% approve and 13% disapprove among Republicans, 40% to 49% among independents, and 7% to 92% among Democrats.”

Said pollster Patrick Murray: “The president’s job rating doesn’t see huge swings, so we tend to focus on small movements. The current reading comes at the end of tax return season and while official Washington eagerly awaits the Mueller report. Neither subject is particularly good for Trump.”

New York Times: “Mr. Trump travels nearly five times as often to states that were in his column in 2016 as to those that supported Hillary Clinton. He has given several times more interviews to Fox News than to all the other major networks combined. His social media advertising is aimed disproportionately at older Americans who were the superstructure of his victory in the Electoral College in 2016. His messaging is permeated with divisive language that galvanizes core supporters more than it persuades anyone on the fence, much less on the other side.”

“Mr. Trump is the only president in the history of Gallup polling never to earn the support of a majority of Americans even for a single day of his term. His approval rating in Gallup has stayed within a 10-point band of 35 percent to 45 percent throughout his presidency.”

USA Today: “On Thursday, at least a dozen attorneys and staff members for President Trump will plunge into special counsel Robert Mueller’s 400-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. Their mission? Distill the document into a quick response for the waiting political world.”

“Getting out that message in the chaotic world of social media and cable television will be a chief aim of Trump’s team and advisers. They will be combing through the Mueller report on the same day that lawmakers, journalists and members of the public will see it for the first time.”

“It’s a process that will likely play out in stages, the Trump aides and advisers said.”

“As he awaits the Thursday release of the redacted special counsel report on his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia, President Trump is filling his idle moments — and blowing off any anticipatory steam — by turning to a familiar pastime: television,” the New York Times reports.

“In speeches, in interviews and on Twitter this week, the president has returned to his comfortable role of town crier and news wire as he opines on the news developments of the day.”

“In addition to his running commentary, Mr. Trump has taken up the role of play-by-play announcer.”

CNN: “While few people close to Trump are predicting any bombshells, there is a sense of apprehension among advisers because they believe the full report will provide the closest and most credible account to date of tumult and chaos inside the West Wing.”

“The damage will be in the details, these advisers believe, given the broad strokes of what Mueller has been investigating are mostly already known. And because the report won’t be based on anonymous sources, but will instead contain accounts attributed to former officials and allies of the President relayed under penalty of lying to federal investigators, it will carry a heavy weight of credibility.”

ABC News “has learned that the White House has received a broad briefing on the report — described as non-specific in nature, focused mostly on the mechanics of the report itself — including that it will be divided into sections on obstruction and collusion and that certain portions will be redacted.”

“White House officials and sources close to the administration say advisers to the president are most concerned about the possibility of previously unknown examples of potential obstruction of justice and what information Mueller’s team learned from witness interviews, especially former White House Counsel Don McGahn who sat for well over 30 hours with Mueller’s investigators.”

“Sources say the president hasn’t privately expressed any concern over the contents of the report, and is not likely to read it in its entirety.”