The revelation that the FBI raided the New York offices of longtime Trump lawyer and noted hush-money dispensary Michael Cohen on Monday has sent our president into another one of his trademark spells that leave White House reporters scrambling to identify previously unused synonyms for "angry." And despite hints that the searches were conducted at the direction of the U.S. attorney's office in New York, Trump, surrounded by grim-faced members of his cabinet, directed his ire elsewhere. "Why don't I just fire Mueller?" he mused. "Well, I think it's a disgrace what's going on. We'll see what happens." He added: "Many people have said you should fire him."

This morning, in the aftermath of the president's most serious threat to fire the special counsel since that time he tried to fire the special counsel, Paul Ryan woke up and tweeted about bridges.

The speaker has adopted a strategy of willful ignorance for dealing with whatever unhinged nonsense Donald Trump said the night before. "As the Speaker has always said, Mr. Mueller and his team should be able to do their job," explained a Ryan spokesperson after the president's weekend fusillade against Mueller in March. When pressed, Mitch McConnell praised Mueller's integrity but declined to protect the investigation from presidential interference on the grounds that McConnell doesn't believe that the president will fire him. "I don't think that's necessary," he said after Trump smeared the Russia probe as a partisan witch hunt. "I don't think Bob Mueller is going anywhere." On Tuesday, he trotted out more of the same.

This is nice, if Mitch McConnell's hunch is right. But he seems to suggest that the only appropriate catalyst for taking action to prevent Trump from firing the special counsel would be...Trump firing the special counsel. This is not how prospective legislation works. And if he is wrong—if, hypothetically speaking, his trust in Donald Trump's patience and good temperament is misplaced, and if the president ignores the advice of his lawyers and moves to oust Mueller anyway—Congress's failure to act will be solvable only with a time machine. I do not believe that Mitch McConnell has invented a time machine.

Watch:

What if Trump Actually Fires Mueller?