As Democrats prepared to lay out the case for their second article of impeachment Friday morning, the mind of Donald Trump, as ever, was elsewhere. “After having been treated unbelievably unfairly in the House, and then having to endure hour after hour of lies, fraud & deception by Shifty Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer & their crew, looks like my lawyers will be forced to start on Saturday, which is called Death Valley in T.V.” he tweeted. Yes, in the face of the third impeachment trial in history, the president—who has repeatedly suggested that his impeachment trial makes for such boring TV that it isn’t worth watching—had fixated on the lousy ratings time slots afforded to his legal team.

It’s a complaint one might expect from Trump, particularly in relation to his defense team, which is primarily composed of as-seen-on-Fox News lawyers. This is, after all, a guy who insisted on hiring Alan Dershowitz because he’s “magnificent on TV.” But it’s deeply ironic considering one of the chief talking points coming out of Trumpworld: that the president’s trial is putting viewers to sleep. That idea has been beaten to death over at the president’s favorite cable-news channel. On Thursday, Trump tweeted a Fox News segment in which host Sean Hannity labeled the trial a “snoozefest,” while White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham previously tweeted that the “sham hearing is not only boring, it is a colossal waste of taxpayer time & money.” Trump has personally claimed that he is far “too busy” to set aside screen time for the proceedings, even as he tweets about witness testimony again and again and again. Perhaps the president’s cronies were expecting things to pick up when his own lawyers took the stage—Jay Sekulow certainly managed a dramatic performance on Tuesday. But according to reports, Trump’s defense strategy of “concede nothing, admit nothing, apologize for nothing” is expected to take just two hours—far less time than the allotted 24 hours over three days.

That’s not a whole lot of prime-time viewing. But presumably, Trump is whining over the principle of the thing—that the Democrats shoehorned his guys on purpose. However, there’s a problem there too: The Senate impeachment trial’s rules and timeline were set by Mitch McConnell and his GOP majority, whom Trump did not mention in his Twitter tantrum. That’s probably for the best. As my colleague Gabriel Sherman reported, Republicans are growing tired of the president’s online stream of bullshit. “Senators really dislike Trump and are tired of having to go to the mat for him on crazy, batshit stuff,” a source close to Trump said.

While the president being acquitted by the Republican-controlled body is still close to a sure thing, the Democratic-led impeachment has at least succeeded in enraging him. Trump set a record for most tweets by a president in a single day on Wednesday, posting 142 times, mostly to deride the trial. The tweetstorm shattered his past record of 123 tweets in a day, a number set just over a month ago while he protested his impeachment in the House. That he’s whining over his legal team’s potential bum numbers suggests he’s at least a little bit concerned that he’s losing ground.

More Great Stories from Vanity Fair

— Is the DOJ’s Hillary Clinton investigation a bust?

— Do the Russians really have information on Mitch McConnell?

— The mystery of the Trump chaos trades, Iran/Mar-a-Lago edition

— Why Trump has a huge advantage over Dems with low-information voters

— The Obamoguls: propelled by still-potent political hope, Barack and Michelle have gone multiplatform

— New evidence suggests disturbing scheme by Trump’s Ukraine goons against Marie Yovanovitch

— From the Archive: The death and mysteries in Geneva of Edouard Stern

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.