Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind.



-- King Lear, Act IV, Scene 1

Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair has opened another window into the dark moments at Camp Runamuck and the sights there lead us to a pair of conclusions: 1) the country is being led by a man three sandwiches short of a picnic, and 2) there are still cowards who are willing to tell us about it, yet unwilling to do a goddamn thing about it.

More than ever, Trump is acting by feeling and instinct. “Trump is nuts,” said one former West Wing official. “This time really feels different.” Deputy Chief of Staff Bill Shine has privately expressed concern, a source said, telling a friend that Trump’s emotional state is “very tender.” Even Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are unsettled that Trump is so gleefully acting on his most self-destructive impulses as his legal peril grows. According to a source, Jared and Ivanka told Trump that stripping security clearances from former intelligence officials would backfire, but Trump ignored them. Kushner later told a friend Trump “got joy” out of taking away John Brennan’s clearance. His reaction to the death of John McCain—quashing a White House statement in praise of the senator, and restoring White House flags to full staff—falls into the same self-indulgent category.

I'm not comfortable with a president who can be described as going nuts differently from the last few times he went nuts, but that's me. Also, you've have to have the brains of a ficus not to see that the Javanka camp is willing to sell out nutty Pops to save itself.

By the weekend, though, his anger had returned. “He spent the weekend calling people and screaming,” one former White House official said.

"I'm sorry, sir. This is Dominos."

Who are the people whom he called and at whom he screamed? Come out, come out, wherever you are. You have a constitutional duty to the nation to give it chapter and verse on the president*'s latest "episode." And all weekend, all of the networks, even his favorite one, are going to be heaping praise and honor on a man who, bless his curmudgeonly heart, kicked the president* in the nuts from the Beyond on Monday afternoon. Stay away from your phones at all times, people. This is an emergency.

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

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