Washington (CNN) In the last six days, President Donald Trump has granted extended interviews to 12(!) major media outlets. And, in almost every one he's managed to say something -- or a lot of somethings -- that has created controversy and raised real questions about what he actually knows (and what he doesn't.)

It all began last Wednesday when Trump sat down with Reuters . Not only did Trump wax nostalgic about his "old life" and admit that being president is a lot harder than he thought, he also managed to ramp up the rhetoric against North Korea by telling the interviewers that "there is a chance we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea."

And it ended -- maybe? -- on Monday with excerpts of Trump's interviews with CBS' John Dickerson and SiriusXM's Salena Zito as well as a new interview with Bloomberg . In those interviews, Trump said, among many other things, that "I don't stand by anything" and insisted that his allegations about President Obama wiretapping Trump Tower during the 2016 election had been proven. (They haven't.) He also demonstrated only the loosest understanding of US history regarding Andrew Jackson's life and the causes of the Civil War.

In between those bookends, Trump claimed in various interviews to have had among the most successful first 100 days in presidential history and suggested it might be time to change the "archaic" rules of the Senate.

Taken as a whole, this run of interviews -- ostensibly aimed at touting Trump's accomplishments over his first 100 days in office -- look like a very bad idea, showcasing the worst Trump traits and sending the news cycle veering wildly off the course onto which the administration had hoped to steer it.

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