The accusations that surfaced this week against Today host Matt Lauer are appalling. Mr. Desk Lock Button was rightfully canned for a pattern of alleged predatory behavior. That was the message Stephen Colbert had Wednesday night, but he couldn't help but notice someone else had weighed in. Yes, Lauer was a member of The Liberal Media—not, say, a Republican Senate candidate in Alabama—so President Trump was on Twitter, crowing about the developments. Never mind, as Colbert reminded us, that the president has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women:

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"Listen up: You don't get to comment," Colbert said. "That is the pot calling up the kettle at three a.m. and asking what she's wearing." But Trump does not believe in the concept of objective reality, or of truth in the public discourse. The truth is whatever enough people will believe. So as long as his supporters believe no one has accused him of sexual assault—or that the accusers are lying—it doesn't matter that, in reality, he has been accused by more than a dozen women. It seems President Good Brain, who went on another tweet escapade last night that didn't exactly make the argument for his mental fitness, has gone so deep down the rabbit hole he might be drowning in his own delusions.

"That is the pot calling up the kettle at three a.m. and asking what she's wearing."

As Colbert highlighted, a New York Times article this week relates that in private, Trump has started telling people it wasn't him doing all that Locker Room Talk on the Access Hollywood tape with Billy Bush. Never mind that you can see Trump's face on the video, along with all his and Bush's creepy behavior even after they get off the bus. Trump is now claiming that it's someone else's voice talking about the privileges of being "a star," which include that you can "grab them by the pussy" without asking. Never mind that Trump has already admitted it was him on the tape and apologized. Trump also remains steadfast in his belief his predecessor, Barack Obama, was born in Kenya and faked his American birth certificate.

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We have steadily learned over the last couple of months that powerful men in every public-facing industry are no longer immune to repercussions for abusive and predatory behavior. Every industry, that is, except politics. And every powerful man, that is, except the President of the United States, who is held to a lower standard than Billy Bush. After all, "the Bushy" lost his job. The president will apparently never be deemed unfit because he admitted to sexual assault on tape, or because he was accused by more than a dozen women of some kind of misconduct. But is he maybe unfit because he clings to insane fantasies in his head, and spends his days holed up in the White House residence yelling at the TV and retweeting unverified informational flotsam from British ethno-nationalists?

Actually, none of that affects his ability to sign the Republicans' plutocratic tax bill, currently being rammed through Congress without hearings or analyses—surely because it's all crafted for the benefit of Everyday Americans. As long as he can sign his name in permanent marker on whatever reverse-Robin Hood monstrosity comes out of the legislature, President Locker Room Talk is the man for the job.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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