Jonathan Swan at Axios lets us in on a secret: Trump is spending most of his time at home watching tv and talking on the phone. He doesn’t get to the office until 11 in the morning.

Trump’s days in the Oval Office are relatively short – from around 11am to 6pm, then he’s back to the residence. During that time he usually has a meeting or two, but spends a good deal of time making phone calls and watching cable news in the dining room adjoining the Oval. Then he’s back to the residence for more phone calls and more TV.

Take these random examples from this week’s real schedule:

• On Tuesday, Trump has his first meeting of the

Uh oh. Hearts are racing at the White House – Mueller wants to interview Dopy Don.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has told President Trump’s legal team that his office is likely to seek an interview with the president, triggering a discussion among his attorneys about how to avoid a sit-down encounter or set limits on such a session, according to two people familiar with the talks.

Hahaha yeah I bet. They know how it will go – he’ll blab out incriminating shit the minute he opens his mouth, just as he did the day after he fired Comey.

The special counsel’s team could interview Trump soon on some limited portion of questions — possibly within the next

Jennifer Rubin finds Trump’s genius not all that stable, or genius, after yesterday’s eruptions.

Both his desire to prevent criticism and his ridiculous “cease and desist” letters sent by his lawyers to Wolff and his publisher betray his contempt for the First Amendment and his inability to take himself out of the equation and recognize the pillars of democracy, a democracy he took an oath to defend.

Himself is all he really ever talks about. Even when he’s announcing the latest move to drill for oil in the Grand Canyon or open the oceans for toxic waste dumping, it’s always because the punch line is “and I did all this look how awesome I am.”

Policy isn’t being made

After Dim Donald’s shy confession of genius on Twitter this morning he expanded on his explanation to reporters.

Elaborating during a meeting with reporters at Camp David later in the day, Mr. Trump again ticked off what he called a high-achieving academic and career record. He raised the matter “only because I went to the best colleges, or college,” he said. Referring to a new book citing concerns about his fitness, he said, “I consider it a work of fiction and I consider it a disgrace.”

Translation: I hate it I hate it I hate it.

The president’s engagement on the issue is likely to fuel the long-simmering argument about his state of mind that has roiled the political

This is a nice antidote:

I've made a pop-up easy reader version of Fire and Fury so Donald can see what all the fuss is about pic.twitter.com/xMASZUKjSn

— HappyToast★ (@IamHappyToast) January 6, 2018

His first days in office pic.twitter.com/xwIa0VBbWs

— HappyToast★ (@IamHappyToast) January 6, 2018

snacks pic.twitter.com/kFprQ2Cy2L

— HappyToast★ (@IamHappyToast) January 6, 2018

Two scoops!

hairdressing tips pic.twitter.com/aO7KtGkumn

— HappyToast★ (@IamHappyToast) January 6, 2018

inauguration sads pic.twitter.com/lHGCqxbIUK

— HappyToast★ (@IamHappyToast) January 6, 2018

“WHO INVITED ALL THE EMPTY SEATS?” – classic.

new friends pic.twitter.com/weVLJcpgyC

— HappyToast★ (@IamHappyToast) January 6, 2018

presidential dinners pic.twitter.com/J36h858S2L

— HappyToast★ (@IamHappyToast) January 6, 2018

and pouring over the best intel a world leader can receive pic.twitter.com/8wDMOTO0jx

— HappyToast★ (@IamHappyToast) January 6, 2018

All praise to … Read the rest

The Friday night-Saturday morning installment:

Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! https://t.co/mEeUhk5ZV9

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

Dumped like a dog? Does Trump have a habit of dumping dogs? Where, by the roadside? In Central Park? In the East River? Or maybe he means “dog” aka “ugly woman” who gets dumped because ugly. Anyway, all very dignified and presidential, announcing that a book he hasn’t read is boring and that it’s untruthful when … Read the rest

Don is universally agreed to be an idiot but hey, he can still destroy all the coasts.

The Trump administration said Thursday it would allow new offshore oil and gas drilling in nearly all United States coastal waters, giving energy companies access to leases off California for the first time in decades and opening more than a billion acres in the Arctic and along the Eastern Seaboard.

The proposal lifts a ban on such drilling imposed by President Barack Obama near the end of his term and would deal a serious blow to his environmental legacy. It would also signal that the Trump administration is not done unraveling environmental restrictions in an effort to promote energy production.

Many states … Read the rest

People in Europe are somewhat rattled by the whole thing.

“Is Trump still sane?” asked the Friday lead headline on the site of Germany’s most respected conservative paper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The piece was published under the topic “mental health.”

Meanwhile, British readers woke up to the Times of London’s main front page headline that also wondered about the president’s stability: “Trump’s mental health questioned by top aide.”

“Donald Trump’s right-hand man openly questioned his fitness to serve and predicted that he would resign to avoid being removed by his own cabinet, according to a book that the US president tried to block yesterday,” wrote the Rupert Murdoch-controlled Times of London.

Well at least they found a dignified photo to … Read the rest

Boom, as Benjamin Wittes says when one of these appears. Trump tried to order Sessions not to recuse himself.

President Trump gave firm instructions in March to the White House’s top lawyer: stop the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, from recusing himself in the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s associates had helped a Russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election.

Public pressure was building for Mr. Sessions, who had been a senior member of the Trump campaign, to step aside. But the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, carried out the president’s orders and lobbied Mr. Sessions to remain in charge of the inquiry, according to two people with knowledge of the episode.

Mr. McGahn was unsuccessful,

Trump is of course firing off threats of lawsuits right and left.

He’s threatening the publisher and the author.

The legal notice, which has been published by the Washington Post, demands that author Michael Wolff and the book’s publisher “immediately cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination of the book”.

It accuses Wolff of making “numerous false and/or baseless statements” about Mr Trump and says lawyers are considering pursuing libel charges.

Considering it. They just might do it! I’m tellin ya, they’ll do it! They will! You better shut up or they will!

He’s threatening Bannon.

A private lawyer representing Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bannon, arguing he violated an employment agreement with

John Cassidy at the New Yorker does some more gleaning from Wolff’s book and tosses us the bits of chocolate and almond.

[T]he over-all portrait that Wolff draws of a dysfunctional, bitterly divided White House in the first six months of Trump’s Presidency, before the appointment of John Kelly as chief of staff and the subsequent firing of Bannon, has the whiff of authenticity about it—and it echoes news coverage at the time. Other details are impossible to confirm but damning if true. Such was the animosity between Bannon and “Jarvanka”—Bannon’s dismissive term for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner—Wolff reports, that, during one Oval Office meeting, Bannon called Ivanka “a fucking liar,” to which Trump responded,“I told you this is

Michael Wolff has a summary of his Trump book at the Hollywood Reporter (a fitting place for it).

Most of it is what we’ve already seen via the news: shock-horror, chaos, incompetence, mass departures, how did we get here, what does this even. But toward the end there are some…let’s say noteworthy details.

There was, after the abrupt Scaramucci meltdown, hardly any effort inside the West Wing to disguise the sense of ludicrousness and anger felt by every member of the senior staff toward Trump’s family and Trump himself. It became almost a kind of competition to demystify Trump. For Rex Tillerson, he was a moron. For Gary Cohn, he was dumb as shit. For H.R. McMaster, he was a

The Times on Trump’s witty and tactful overture to North Korea yesterday:

President Trump again raised the prospect of nuclear war with North Korea, boasting in strikingly playground terms on Tuesday night that he commands a “much bigger” and “more powerful” arsenal of devastating weapons than the outlier government in Asia.

CNN last night was doing a lot of underlining of the dick-waving aspect – which was triple, let’s not forget, bigger and more powerful AND IT WORKS.

This of course was just as South Korea was suggesting talks with the North, so there’s that punch the ally aspect as well.

The president’s tone also generated a mix of scorn and alarm among lawmakers, diplomats and national security experts who

Reality as seen from the Wall Street Journal editorial board: fine, everything is fine, don’t worry about it, the very fact that so many people are so disgusted by Trump shows that he’s not a problem.

As Donald Trump heads into his second year as President, we’re pleased to report that there hasn’t been a fascist coup in Washington. This must be terribly disappointing to the progressive elites who a year ago predicted an authoritarian America because Mr. Trump posed a unique threat to democratic norms. But it looks like the U.S. will have to settle for James Madison’s boring checks and balances.

The ones that prevent an incompetent ignorant corrupt malevolent bully from attaining executive power … Read the rest

Jeffrey Goldberg (at the Atlantic) talked to Jonah Goldberg (of National Review). They are not the same person. Indeed the fact that they are not the same person of part of Jeffrey G’s motivation for talking to Jonah G.

I wanted to interview Jonah because I find him provocative and sharp, but also because I have as a goal the disaggregation of all media Goldbergs. I am frequently confused for Jonah, and sometimes I’m blamed for the things he writes. He is blamed for the things I write, of course, and we sometimes get each other’s mail. This interview was a chance to convince podcast listeners that we are, indeed, two separate people.

Or one person doing two voices!… Read the rest

Trump isn’t much for consistency, is he.

Tweet one:

Iran, the Number One State of Sponsored Terror with numerous violations of Human Rights occurring on an hourly basis, has now closed down the Internet so that peaceful demonstrators cannot communicate. Not good!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017

Iran has closed down the Internet. Not good!

Tweet two:

As our Country rapidly grows stronger and smarter, I want to wish all of my friends, supporters, enemies, haters, and even the very dishonest Fake News Media, a Happy and Healthy New Year. 2018 will be a great year for America!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2017

The US news media are Fake! Fake Fake Fake Fake!

We … Read the rest

A Republican who likes many of Trump’s policies and actions nevertheless would prefer Clinton to have the job. The surprise there is only that there aren’t more like him.

And want to preserve your own republican institutions? Then pay attention to the character of your leaders, the culture of governance and the political health of the public. It matters a lot more than lowering the top marginal income tax rate by a couple of percentage points.

This is the fatal mistake of conservatives who’ve decided the best way to deal with Trump’s personality — the lying, narcissism, bullying, bigotry, crassness, name calling, ignorance, paranoia, incompetence and pettiness — is to pretend it doesn’t matter. “Character Doesn’t Count” has become

Again the scumbag profits from his presidency while we pay his expenses.

President Trump is set to ring in the new year the same way he has for about two decades — at the lavish party he hosts at his private club here.

But this weekend’s gala at Mar-a-Lago, his first since becoming president, will be a little different: The security will be tighter. The crowds will probably be bigger. And the tickets will run $750 a guest, a hike from last year, according to members and guests.

That ticket hike is profiteering from public office.

Critics said the boost in prices for Sunday’s party and Trump’s regular trips to Trump Organization properties — this is the president’s tenth

Princess Ivanka is pleased that Daddy is getting rid of all those pesky regulations protections that might eat into her profits a little bit.

“The Trump economy is booming.” One thing @realDonaldTrump “has done that has received little attention despite arguably driving today’s economic boom is his decision to declare war on the regulatory state.” #Deregulation https://t.co/YzOYbyKXLW

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) December 28, 2017

A couple of weeks ago he did a photo op with the Big Pile of Protections that he promises to kill.

#trump photo op. for repealing regulations-comparing 1960's to present. More regs needed as more people, climate change, internet, equal rights, mining, green policies, cell phones. Simple-minded approach to complex ever changing world. Remember, the dinosaurs