The Trump administration’s official rationale for firing James Comey—that they did so because of his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails—took less than a day to break down completely. It was clear almost immediately that the FBI director was fired because he was leading the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia and by Wednesday, the Trump administration was openly admitting as much.

In an interview with Lester Holt that aired on Thursday evening, Trump said that Comey was let go because he was sick and tired of the Russia investigation. “I was going to fire regardless of [the] recommendation” from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Trump said. “And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. And the reason they should have won it is the Electoral College is almost impossible for a Republican to win. Very hard. Because you start off at such a disadvantage. So everybody was thinking, they should have won the election. This was an excuse for having lost an election.”

Trump calls Russia probe “made-up story” and excuse by Democrats for why they lost election https://t.co/ShNM9F2DB9 https://t.co/UwUxzgeXdx — CNN (@CNN) May 12, 2017

On Thursday evening, around the same time as the Holt interview, The New York Times reported that Trump demanded that Comey pledge his loyalty to him. Comey tried to wriggle out of this trap, instead pledging “honest loyalty.”

It’s hard to overstate just how bad this situation is and how responsible Trump is for continuing to make it worse with each passing day. On Friday morning, he essentially decided to threaten to blackmail Comey.

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

The implication here seems to be that Trump is wiretapping himself—a la Nixon’s infamous tape system—and that, if Comey spills the beans, Trump will hit him with the tapes. (Trump is probably bluffing, but honestly who knows anymore.)