Story highlights Tim Naftali: Time interview reads like someone opened the portal into Donald J. Trump's brain -- like in the movie Being John Malkovich -- in the form of what -- for the want of a better description -- is a stream of consciousness talk with the 45th President of these United States.

The former director of the Richard Nixon library, Timothy Naftali is a CNN presidential historian who teaches intelligence history and national security policy at NYU. The views expressed in this commentary are solely his.

(CNN) Thanks to the energy of Time magazine's Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer and the self-absorption of our President, someone opened the portal into Donald J. Trump's brain -- like in the movie "Being John Malkovich" -- in the form of what for the want of a better description is a stream of consciousness interview with the 45th President of these United States.

Tim Naftali

When Woodrow Wilson introduced the concept of the presidential press conference, he stipulated that they should be off the record and that the president would not be quoted directly. FDR was first to loosen those restrictions somewhat, but it was not until the advent of live televised press conferences in the 1950s that some spontaneity and much more transparency were introduced into presidential utterances.

This Trump interview is an argument for perhaps a little less spontaneity in presidential statements, for the sanity of the Republic.

You have to read it for yourself. Highlighting it would suggest a logic and flow that it didn't have. I have read it, and here's what I can tell you: It is crystal clear that Americans elected a man who is happily, though defensively, living in his own reality.

All presidents are, to a certain extent, defensive. And when a scandal looms like a cloud over the White House, as the Russia hacking matter now does, presidents are understandably even more defensive. Think of JFK after the Bay of Pigs, Nixon during Watergate (though his last public speech as president was unscripted and therefore very revealing of his hyperactive id), Reagan after Iran Contra, Clinton about Whitewater and Lewinsky.

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