The Post looks back on Trump’s lively weekend:

Asked how he would grade his presidency during a Sunday morning interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News, President Trump offered only the smallest amount of hesitation before giving himself top marks.

“Look, I hate to do it, but I will do it, I would give myself an A-plus,” he answered. “Is that enough? Can I go higher than that?”

It wasn’t even hesitation, really. It was saying “I know this is gross and conceited but hey I am gross and conceited.”

The weekend kicked off with Trump’s bizarre comments about raking leaves. Touring California communities that have been decimated by the deadliest fires in the state’s history, Trump told reporters

So the White House is throwing down, Colonel Jessup style: you’re god damn right we’re going to use our power to shut down reporters we don’t like.

CNN and the network’s chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta have asked a federal judge for an emergency hearing after the White House sent Acosta a letter saying it planned to suspend Acosta’s press pass again, just hours after the same judge ordered the White House to temporarily restore Acosta’s credentials Friday. Unless the judge extends that 14-day order, it will expire at the end of the month.

Dear Jim: We’re gonna take your press pass away again in 11 days because we’re just that authoritarian and proud of it, love Sarah.… Read the rest

Trump did another Blab All with Fox News today.

President Trump said he would not overrule his acting attorney general, Matthew G. Whitaker, if he decides to curtail the special counsel probe being led by Robert S. Mueller III into Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign.

“Look, it’s going to be up to him . . . I would not get involved,” Trump said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

Oh, suddenly the AG has all kinds of autonomy, when the previous one (who was for real as opposed to Acting) was supposed to protect Trump instead of recusing himself. Funny how the rules work in Trump-world. Sessions was supposed to jump when Trump said jump, and Whitaker … Read the rest

Now he’s there and he’s still talking the same stupid shit there on the ground. It’s a wonder no one has bashed his head against a tree – oh wait no it isn’t, there are no trees left.

After touring some of the fire damage in Northern California, President Donald Trump was asked whether seeing the devastation changed his opinion on climate change.

“No, no I have a strong opinion. I want a great climate. We’re going to have that, and we are going to have that are very safe because we can’t go through this. Every year we go through this. We’re going to have safe forests and that’s happening as we speak,” he told reporters during a briefing

The BBC reports more startling examples of Trump’s mind-blindness.

Donald Trump says he has finished answering questions about alleged Russian meddling during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The US leader told reporters he had personally answered the questions “very easily”, but his responses had yet to be submitted to the investigating team.

That’s just gooofy as well as mind-blind…as if he were taking a test as opposed to answering questions from The Law.

On Thursday, he took to Twitter to describe Mr Mueller as “conflicted”, called the investigation “absolutely nuts”, adding that those involved in the long-running probe “are a disgrace to our nation”.

No awareness that other people will see this as lunacy coming from a president who … Read the rest

Another version of Trump’s problem with other minds: he’s been so public in his efforts to stifle Mueller that he can’t stifle Mueller.

The president himself might not quite realize it yet, and he probably doesn’t understand why it happened. But he has lost that conflict, and the reason is simple: His attempts to fight Mueller were so ham-handed and so public that it made it impossible for him and his administration to shut Mueller down.

The president is simply incapable of subtlety and judges everything by how it plays out in the media. But in this case, the more attention he drew to his rage at Mueller, the greater the consequences of moving against Mueller became.

He’s incapable … Read the rest

A judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the White House’s grabbing away of Jim Acosta’s press pass.

CNN sued President Trump and other White House officials on Tuesday over the revocation. Kelly’s ruling was the first legal skirmish in that lawsuit. It has the immediate effect of sending Acosta back to the White House, pending further arguments and a possible trial. The litigation is in its early stages, and a trial could be months in the future.

Kelly, whom Trump appointed to the federal bench last year, handed down his ruling two days after the network and government lawyers argued over whether the president had the power to exclude a reporter from the White House.

Trump will pitch … Read the rest

He’s losing it again, aka he’s trying to obstruct justice again. In public where everyone can see him.

The White House is running very smoothly and the results for our Nation are obviously very good. We are the envy of the world. But anytime I even think about making changes, the FAKE NEWS MEDIA goes crazy, always seeking to make us look as bad as possible! Very dishonest!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2018

The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to

Trump is having a sad. Or a cranky. Trump is having a sad and cranky. Poor Trump. Do we feel sorry for Trump? No.

For weeks this fall, an ebullient President Trump traveled relentlessly to hold raise-the-rafters campaign rallies — sometimes three a day — in states where his presence was likely to help Republicans on the ballot.

And, the LA Times doesn’t say but I do, joyously fanning the flames of racism and misogyny. He had himself a high old time encouraging his fans to give in to all their hatreds.

But his mood apparently has changed as he has taken measure of the electoral backlash that voters delivered Nov. 6. With the certainty that the incoming Democratic

Trump’s trolling today is aimed at France and Macron.

The US president’s Tuesday morning tweet exacerbates his standoff with Macron following his visit to Paris over the weekend that was marred by his controversial behavior.

Trump’s outburst came as France marked the third anniversary of the 2015 Bataclan terror attack in which a coordinated wave of suicide bombings and gun attacks left nearly 130 people dead.

In the tweet Trump repeated his accusation that Macron had called for a European army as protection against the US – an apparent misreading of Macron’s earlier comments.

Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One &

Seriously??

The White House on Monday confirmed that President Donald Trump will not visit Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day.

According to Washington Post correspondent Josh Dawsey, the White House announced “a lid” on presidential movements at 10 a.m. ET, meaning the president is not scheduled to leave the White House for the remainder of the day.

But isn’t he the president who never stops talking about “our great military” and how much he loves the military and how awesome “our great military” is and doncha wish you had one like it? Yet he can’t even tear himself away from the tv to go do a respect on the day set aside to honor veterans?

Oh and also? Don’t count … Read the rest

Jennifer Rubin puts it another (but related) way:

President Trump is back in the United States — and back to attacking democracy. He tweets:

The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018

I know, we’ve already seen the tweet, but it’s worth looking at twice.

We should note that this is the talk of authoritarians; it shows contempt for the office of the president, whom the Constitution designates to “to

The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018

So Tom Pepinsky looks at what it means when elections are delegitimized.

It is now the official White House position that constitutionally-mandated recounts are illegitimate.

In a month of harrowing news, this development is still almost incalculably bad for American democracy. I now assume that a substantial minority of Americans believe that the results of the elections in Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and