The latest from the head man at Camp Runamuck leaves us with two basic conclusions: 1) that maybe it's time for him to treat The New York Times like he actually hates it and like he really thinks it's fake news, and for him to stop granting the newspaper interviews in which he comes off sounding like a vengeful gnome who flunked sixth-grade history; and 2) that it's time to take the car keys away from Dad.

If you're keeping score at home, just in the past week, a lawyer for El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago has insulted the Secret Service while The Man himself has threatened Republican senators, his own attorney general, the assistant attorney general, the former director of the FBI whom he fired under dubious circumstances, and the special counsel who's been empowered to rummage through his entire life. And, also, there's this:

TRUMP: After that, it was fairly surprising. He [President Emmanuel Macron of France] called me and said, "I'd love to have you there and honor you in France," having to do with Bastille Day. Plus, it's the 100th year of the First World War. That's big. And I said yes. I mean, I have a great relationship with him. He's a great guy.

HABERMAN: He was very deferential to you. Very.

TRUMP: He's a great guy. Smart. Strong. Loves holding my hand.

HABERMAN: I've noticed.

TRUMP: People don't realize he loves holding my hand. And that's good, as far as that goes.

I think I speak for the entire class when I say I don't even want to think about how far that goes. History comes in for quite a beating later in the conversation.

TRUMP: Well, Napoleon finished a little bit bad. But I asked that. So I asked the president, so what about Napoleon? He said: "No, no, no. What he did was incredible. He designed Paris." [garbled] The street grid, the way they work, you know, the spokes. He did so many things even beyond. And his one problem is he didn't go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death. How many times has Russia been saved by the weather? [garbled]

[crosstalk/unintelligible]

TRUMP: Same thing happened to Hitler. Not for that reason, though. Hitler wanted to consolidate. He was all set to walk in. But he wanted to consolidate, and it went and dropped to 35 degrees below zero, and that was the end of that army.

[crosstalk]

But the Russians have great fighters in the cold. They use the cold to their advantage. I mean, they've won five wars where the armies that went against them froze to death. [crosstalk] It's pretty amazing.

So, we're having a good time. The economy is doing great.

Sequitur? Non!

The 25th Amendment is starting to look like it was a really good idea.

Of course, the meat of the discussion was his astonishing revelation that, if he had known Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III wasn't going to use the Department of Justice to cover the presidential ass, he never would have given JeffBo the job. Sessions was the very first semi-well-known national Republican to lend his credibility to the Trump campaign. If there's room under the bus for him, there's room for anyone and everyone. Anyone who doubted that the president* is willing to bring the temple down on his own head rather than to own up honestly about all his dealings with Russian oligarchs and gangsters can have no doubt any more.

He will fire Robert Mueller and damn the torpedoes. That is very plain in what he said to the Times. Legislatively, he will continue to demand that senators immolate themselves politically in order to give him a "win" on healthcare, no matter what it may do to 33 million of their fellow citizens. (A modest suggestion: just repeal President Obama's name and leave the rest of the Affordable Care Act intact so it can be repaired. Obama's name has been what this whole mishigas has been about all along anyway.) The whole political system is now, as he defines it, little more than a loyalty cult to his own bizarre and inflated image of himself. With very few exceptions, the Republican Party seems unable or unwilling to keep this from happening.

It's a cannibal feast of democratic government, and everyone's fighting over portions.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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