President Trump managed to one-up himself with the scattered nature of Tuesday morning’s tweet-tantrum, which is quite a feat at this point. Today’s topics ranged from health care to (oddly) Barron Trump, but the standout moment happened when Trump attacked Jeff Sessions and provided more fuel for reports that he wishes to replace the attorney general. Trump raged about Sessions’ supposedly “VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes” and “leakers,” and then he moved on to the tweet that set MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski’s mouth agape: “Problem is that the acting head of the FBI & the person in charge of the Hillary investigation, Andrew McCabe, got $700,000 from H for wife!”
Problem is that the acting head of the FBI & the person in charge of the Hillary investigation, Andrew McCabe, got $700,000 from H for wife!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2017
While Brzezinski sat in shock, Scarborough began to gleefully celebrate the madcap nature of the tweet, for Trump was slamming an FBI official that he nearly nominated to replace James Comey:
“He put McCabe up as a possible finalist to be his FBI director! Where’s the memory? McCabe was on his finalist list as an FBI director and now he’s going back to complaints he had of September, October of last year. This guy is spinning wildly out of control.”
Scarborough then turned to the camera and broke the fourth wall — as much as one can without entering a work of fiction, although when Trump tweets are involved, the term may still apply — to mock Trump. The host did so not only because he knows that Trump is watching but because Trump insists that he never watches the highly-rated MSNBC morning show:
“I know, you never watch this show, Donald. Whatever show you’re watching is making you crazy. Not crazy, I don’t think you’re crazy, but it’s making you crazy. So, you really need to turn to Sports Center. You really need to stop watching. These tweets make you look really bad.”
That wasn’t all. In this next clip, the hosts and panelists nailed how Trump is still treating Twitter like “a media game.” As Brzezinski puts it, Trump’s daily humiliations play like this: “It feels like he’s treating Sessions and many other along the way in this administration like Rosie O’Donnell.” It all goes back to Trump’s vicious sparring rounds with O’Donnell, which served as a ratings-boosting strategy that doesn’t translate in D.C. Yet Trump can’t switch gears, which is a fair point. Watch below.