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In Donald Trump, we may have elected a corporation to run the country rather than a person, but corporate rules don’t supersede the United States Constitution. A fact of which Trump needs to be reminded:

Late tonight Trump told confidants that he is now ready to see who's with him and who's against him, that the wooing & chatty calls are done — Robert Costa (@costareports) March 24, 2017

It’s doubtful the new cover from the New York Post will do the trick, but it certainly gets the message across. Trump, on the other hand, actually seems to think people want the pile of garbage he’s selling as a healthcare plan:

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That’s right. He thinks the way to “fix” Obamacare is to deprive 24 million people of healthcare. That’s like clearing the sinuses with a 9 mm to the back of the head.

The polls would tell Donald Trump he has no chance in hell of passing this abomination – if he believed polls he didn’t like were fake news; in fact, as Rachel Maddow teased, Trumpcare is actually less popular right now than Chris Christie.

The Constitution would tell him he can’t order Congress around – if he would read the Constitution. But he hasn’t. He thinks he is living out a real-life episode of “The Apprentice – White House Edition.”

But if there are no limits to what Trump could do on the show that never won an Emmy, there are very real limits placed upon presidential power by that Constitution, and he is not in position to threaten members of Congress.

As Joy Reid tweeted, Trump hasn’t quite figured out that the executive branch doesn’t get to order around the legislative branch:

Amazing what we're hearing from reporters including @costareports – Trump treating the GOP members of congress like they're his employees. — Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) March 24, 2017

And that is precisely what he did, as the Daily News explained the other day. This was apparently the “wooing” stage of which Trump spoke:

“I’m gonna come after you,” Trump half-jokingly warned Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. He later told House Republicans that “many of you will lose your seats” if the bill fails, members who were in the meeting told the Daily News.

With the wooing a thing of the past, his message is apparently “if they’re going to burn him, he’ll remember.” And do what exactly?

There are a couple of basic rules Trump has not learned. Don’t make empty threats, and do not give an order you know will not be obeyed.

Trump violated that rule by ordering Republicans in Congress to pass Trumpcare – or else. And the “or else” was an empty threat because as Republicans have pointed out, only their constituents can say to them, “You’re fired!”

Not a smart move from a self-professed “smart guy” whose continued role as president relies on the very GOP members of Congress he is threatening with retribution.

Image: New York Post