Donald Trump's almost pathological impulse to give people around him insulting nicknames - Lyin' Ted Cruz! Crazy Bernie! Low Energy Jeb! - has been one of the most consistently enervating elements of an extremely consistently enervating presidency, but it sounds like Trump's nicknames are hitting previously unplumbed depths of primary school immaturity.

Having taken against Secret Service director Rudolph 'Tex' Alles "a while ago," the president began referring to Alles as "Dumbo" on account of his large ears, according to a New York Times report. The Times doesn't get to the bottom of whether Alles can fly and is best friends with a mouse, but you've got to assume that that kind of thing would be very difficult to keep quiet around the White House.

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Whether the similarities between Alles and the airborne circus performer run any deeper or not, he's out of the door now. In a short binning-off statement, the White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: "United States Secret Service director Randolph 'Tex' Alles has done a great job at the agency over the last two years, and the President is thankful for his over 40 years of service to the country."

'Dumbo' is no classic of the Trump insult armoury. In fact, it's probably down there with the nicknames Trump has chosen for himself, which generally sound like bizarrely limp superhero pitches: think of Mr Brexit, Tariff Man and President T. There they go, a crusading triumvirate, promoting protectionism and corporatism like some kinda economic Suicide Squad.

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