Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s decision to name former FBI Director Rob Meuller to oversee the probe into Russian election tampering and possible Trump campaign collusion “hurts our country terribly,” President Donald Trump told TV news anchors lunching with him today.

Why?

“Because it shows we’re a divided, mixed-up, not unified country,” Trump said on the record, in what was otherwise an off-the-record lunch.

Hours earlier on Twitter, Trump more colorfully called Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller as special counsel “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!”

By lunchtime, Trump was telling TV news anchors: “We have very important things to be doing right now, whether it’s trade deals, whether it’s military, whether it’s stopping nuclear – all of the things we discussed today. And I think [the appointment of Mueller] shows a very divided country.”

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Trump suspects Democrats are behind it:

“It also happens to be a pure excuse for the Democrats having lost the election that they should have easily won, because of the electoral college being slanted so much in their way. That’s all this is,” Trump continued during that lunch with TV news anchors. That included CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper, both of whom read the statement on-air.

“I think it shows division, and it shows we’re not together as a country. And I think it’s a very negative thing,” Trump continued, repeating himself.

“Hopefully this can go quickly, because we have to show unity if we’re going to do great things with respect to the rest of the world.”

His remarks to TV news anchors came one day after Trump launched his Pity Party at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy commencement speech, after learning Rosenstein had named former Mueller special counsel for the Russia investigation.

“You will find that things happen to you that you do not deserve, and that are not always warranted. But you have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight. Never, ever, ever give up. Things will work out just fine. Look the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media.

“No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse, or more unfairly,” said the man who rose to political prominence as the face of the Birther Movement claiming President Barack Obama was an illegitimate president because he was not born in the United States, among other gob-smackers.

Some snarkers also noted Trump appears not to be aware of the four presidents who were assassinated, though he frequently talks about Lincoln, so you’d think he’d know about that one at least.

“You can’t let them get you down. You can’t let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams.”

This morning’s tweeted remarks on same subject:

This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2017

…and: