The week is off to a wretched start:

Here's Trump's full answer on "swashbuckler" Andrew Jackson and the Civil War: "Why could that one not have been worked out?" pic.twitter.com/Zb8OQaDqyq — Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) May 1, 2017

That’s apparently from an episode of a SiriusXM show called Main Street Meets the Beltway scheduled to air today.

Some quick notes:

1. Everyone asks why the Civil War started.

2. Andrew Jackson was the “unrepentant” owner of 161 slaves; he once wrote that abolitionism threatened the “safety of our country, commerce, and our revenue.” To indulge Trump’s time machine scenario, a Jackson-brokered resolution of the conflicts that created the Civil War almost certainly would have involved the perpetuation of slavery.

Seven and a half more years of this, folks. Is there no God?