There are times when it really comes into focus that we've elected a Fox News Grandpa as President of the United States. Thursday morning offered one such moment, as the leader of the free world, Donald J. Trump, called into his favorite TV show, Fox & Friends, to offer his particular viewpoint on world events. While Trump frequently called into morning shows during the campaign to rant, it was jarring to hear the president offer the same godforsaken tirade about the Electoral College results a year and a half after the election. It was singularly so when even the Fox hosts seemed fed up with the charade and tried to guide the president back to present reality.

If his distinctive voice weren't burned into all our brains, it might have been hard to decipher whether it was indeed the president on the phone, or just some Fox News Superfan who won a contest and got to talk to the residents of the Genius Couch:

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

OK, first of all, does Trump admit off the top he didn't get his wife a gift for her birthday? A birthday that is the same week a second porn star publicly suggested Trump tried to get her to his hotel room soon after Melania Trump gave birth to their son? (Let's not forget she also joins a Playboy model who claims she and Trump had an affair.) But then he said he got Melania a card, and he added flowers, so I'm sure everything's all good.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Next up was a recap of his meeting with "Emmanuel" and "Brigitte"—pronounced with an enthusiasm that rivaled his "Little Havana" riff—and how he'd swayed French President Macron on the Iran Deal. It's the worst deal ever, you see, because we gave Iran cash that was "carried out in barrels and in boxes." None of this, of course, reflects reality.

Then there was a question about Ronny Jackson, the presidential doctor Trump tapped to lead the second-largest federal bureaucracy because...he was there. Of course, Jackson was nominated without any vetting of any kind, and former colleagues were soon explaining to Senate inquirers that Jackson was a monster to work for, got drunk on the job, and may have had a laissez-faire attitude towards prescribing medication.

Did Trump acknowledge Jackson's lack of fitness, or that maybe his administration should look into people's backgrounds before tapping them to lead huge federal agencies? No. He ranted about Obstructionist Democrats. This, despite the fact that Republican senators also seemed prepared to block Jackson. Never let reality get in the way.

Later, Trump called Jackson an "incredible man" whose son "is a wonderful boy, goes to Annapolis at the top of his class. One of the finest cadets." (Soon after, Steve Doocy tried desperately to bring the president back from this spirit journey to the Naval Academy.) Trump also suggested that the VA is so big that no one has all the experience needed to run it. So why not pick a guy with no experience at all?



Then there was a rant about "Republican Warriors," which quickly became a rant about Diamond and Silk. Here is that passage, transcribed for posterity:

Diamond and Silk are warriors, by the way. How about Diamond and Silk? They've become amazing. That started off like somebody was talking about them on the Internet, there were these two women, these two beautiful, wonderful women. And I said, well, let me check it out. It took me about two seconds to say, "Stardom!" It's incredible. So Diamond and Silk. These are all warriors. We have great people in the Republican Party. And I think that in one way, it's showing how bad, how obstructionist these Democrats are. It's a disgrace what's happening.

Trump then leapt at an opportunity presented by Doocy to slam former FBI Director James Comey. Trump fired Comey and told Lester Holt on national TV that he was considering "the Russia thing" when he did. Trump went after Comey by repeating the fact-free smear that Comey leaked classified information, and even Doocy felt the need to push back.

DOOCY: He says it wasn't classified, Mr. President.

TRUMP: Oh, well it's totally classified. And he also leaked the memos, which are classified. Nobody unclassified them. And those memos were about me, and they're phony memos. He didn't write those memos accurately, he put a lot of phony stuff!

So are the memos classified intelligence, or are they fake? This brings to mind one of Trump's greatest lines, one that lays bare his complete disregard for objective reality and his prevailing belief that anything he says is true if enough people believe it:

The News Is Fake, The Leaks Are Real.

But this was all a prelude to the piece de resistance, the unmistakeable sign that we were witnessing the presidential equivalent of an old, cantankerous Jets fan calling into WFAN:

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

BREAKING: Trump denies telling Comey he didn't overnight in Moscow, then starts rambling about Hillary getting debate questions. pic.twitter.com/zGc9WnTcMc — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 26, 2018

Yes, this rant about his trip to Moscow (Comey says Trump claimed to him he didn't stay the night in the Russian capital, so he couldn't have hired any hookers. Bloomberg dug up flight records to torpedo this claim.) just became a rant about CNN giving Hillary Clinton the questions before a Democratic primary debate two years ago. Do not try to make sense of this—even Brian Kilmeade tried to put a stop to it.

But of course there was time for actual screaming about Michael Cohen, the president's certified brain genius of a personal lawyer.

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Trump gets very worked up talking about FBI raids of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen -- he's yelling -- then tries to distance himself from Cohen: "I have nothing to do with his business."



Says Cohen only dealt with "a tiny fraction" of his legal work pic.twitter.com/csE9ATZq0M — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018

Cohen, you see, is a Businessman who has Businesses. In other news, that part about "a fraction" has apparently already attracted the attention of prosecutors under the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York—the office hunting Cohen:

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

SDNY tells court: "Trump, reportedly said on cable television this morning that Cohen performs 'a tiny, tiny little fraction' of his overall legal work." https://t.co/SnN3l2M0Pj — Mike Scarcella (@MikeScarcella) April 26, 2018

And then there was the closing salvo, in which the president ruminated on the Electoral College and suggested he's willing to interfere—even more than he already has—in the Department of Justice in the future:

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Trump concludes @foxandfriends interview by screaming about conflicts of interest on Robert Mueller's team, and promising to meddle more aggressively in the Department of Justice going forward. pic.twitter.com/ITak7tEEJJ — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018

As a reminder, it used to be a bona fide scandal for a sitting president to comment on an ongoing Justice Department investigation into anyone. Now the president is constantly and publicly meddling in a probe into himself and his associates—and declaring his attention to ramp up that effort on a cable news program.

In truth, the Friends of Fox deserve some credit here. They didn't just try to drag the old man who called into their show out of the deep recesses of his own paranoid fantasies—they also pushed him on the facts. Doocy, for instance, also reminded Trump that the Justice Department he's continually railing against is run entirely by Republicans he appointed. In a nice display of his particular abilities, the president made Fox & Friends look like something approaching a journalistic endeavor. He also settled the question of who in the Trump-Fox symbiosis is really calling the shots. Only one side has all the arrows in their quiver, and it ain't the leader of the free world.

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.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io