I do want to believe the president of the United States.

Donald Trump said today he is not considering whether to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. A reporter asked the president directly today and he answered it directly.

That’s a good thing.

Except …

The president has a habit of changing his mind on a whim. He can turn on a dime, in an instant. He can switch gears, slam his thoughts into reverse and do precisely the opposite of what he had said earlier.

Conservatives are ganging up on Mueller over a couple of prosecutors on his staff who had exchanged emails expressing a distinct bias toward Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump during the 2016 election. Mueller fired them both.

Mueller is leading an investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian operatives who — according to intelligence analysts — hacked into our electoral process and meddled in Trump’s election as president.

The attacks against Mueller are mounting. Conservatives believe he’s too cozy with the fired FBI director, James Comey. They also believe he’s too anti-Trump to conduct an impartial and fair investigation into the collusion matter.

Trump calls the probe a “witch hunt” and says there’s “no collusion.” Fine, then let the investigation run its course.

The president is now on record saying he has no plans to fire Mueller. He isn’t considering it — he said.

I need to remind others, though, that politicians quite regularly say they “have no plans” to run for another office, but then do so anyway. The “have no plans” dodge protects them in the moment; it doesn’t address what might happen in the next day, or week, or month.

With the president, we need to be mindful of his ability to change his mind in the next, oh, 30 seconds.