"Any time they are yelling, preaching, lecturing, and you are cool and calm and breathing deep, you are winning," the administration official said the White House team told Judge Alito. "What that means on television sets where the American people are watching this is, you look good and they look bad. It was the central operating premise."
The hearer changes mid-quote. For the first part, Alito was being spoken to in the present tense. The last sentence is directed to the reporter live, thus the switch to the past tense.
Could be.
My husband testified twice in court in two seperate cases, both times he was given the same advice by prosecutor about not getting rattled, staying calm- letting the opposing attorney be the one to "look bad" if he was yelling, preaching or lecturing. So to me this sounds like standard advice and to Judge Alito, I am sure it was not even necessary to tell him that. It was just done as a reminder type thing. I don't consider that a "set-up" just SOP. Did I miss something?
I know you are questioning the form of the story, but I question the content just as much as the form.