There is no bottom.
In an interview today with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, Donald Trump went on an extended rant that included repeating claims that his campaign was spied on, claiming that Robert Mueller “illegally terminated the emails,” and declaring that the Federal Reserve chair isn’t a tough guy but … something not so tough. And then Trump moved to the stage at a meeting of the Christian organization Faith and Freedom Coalition and informed the Christian crowd that, if he hadn’t won in 2016, Iran would have conquered the entire Middle East. And, most Christian of all, he expressed his hope that John McCain is in hell.
The Bartiromo interview alone might have been enough to send the staff of any normal executive scrambling for a copy of the Constitution and looking up the steps involved in exercising the 25th Amendment. Trump started off by claiming that the FBI and the Department of Justice “got caught spying” on his campaign and that “now they’re running around going wild.” Then he went on to explain how he’s beating up China and scoring billions of tariff dollars that “we’re not paying anything for.” But when it comes to Mexico and Canada, “we gave them a big break, we didn’t have to, but a lot of people in Congress said ‘Please, please give them a break.’ Why they said that, who knows? I decided to go along, because some people in Congress really like me, so I decided to go along.” Who knows? But we did it. Because people really like me.
And then there’s the part where Trump attacked Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell: “I have the right to demote him” and “I have the right to fire him. Here’s a guy—nobody ever heard of him before,” said Trump. “And now, I made him, and he wants to show how tough he is. Okay, let him show how tough he is. He’s a pu— … He’s a … He’s not doing a good job.” And really, the fact that Trump was alert enough to stop himself from saying what he started to say was the high point of the whole interview. Then Trump claimed that the reason we don’t know about the crimes committed by the FBI is that Mueller "terminated the emails. He terminated them. They're gone. And that's illegal. That's a crime."
On any given day, Donald Trump is likely to drop bombshells of idiocy on the White House lawn. Or to drop a tweet that inexplicably overturns his own policy, generating a mad scramble in D.C. newsrooms as surrogates try to adapt to the new abnormal. Even on that kind of day, the Fox interview would stand out for the density of its lies and nonsense.
But on this particular Wednesday, nothing in the Fox interview was even close to the worst thing that Trump said.
The reason that the bumbling lies and literally incredible claims of the Fox interview aren’t the worst thing today is that Trump then spoke to the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Trump explained first that “our great clergy is now able to speak without fear of retribution,” because, under Obama, Christians had to be silent. And then Trump told a “joke.”
“They can speak … unless they speak against me,” Trump said. “In that case we’ll bring it back. We’ll bring back that Johnson amendment so fast. … I’m only kidding, I’m only kidding.” The Johnson amendment, according to which, “Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” What a joke.
Then Trump took a moment to celebrate his win in the War on Christmas. Which is always a top concern. In June.
Trump then explained to the crowd that the reason so many people are coming to America is his policies “to bring people back together,” adding that “we [are] taking care of them much better than President Obama took care of them, I can tell you that. Much better. He was the one who had separation. I’m the one who put people together.“
Trump assured the crowd that if he wins in 2020, and Republicans keep the Senate, and Republicans retake the House, they will have a new healthcare plan that’s “much better” than Obamacare. A plan they’re not going to plan until they get all those wins. But that discussion only opened the door for Trump to discuss the person he really blames for Republicans’ failure to create a healthcare plan they’ve been claiming would be better than Obamacare since before there was Obamacare.
“We needed 60 votes,” said Trump. “And we had 51 votes. And sometimes, you know, we had a little hard time with a couple of them. Right? Fortunately, they're gone now. They've gone on to greener pastures. Or perhaps … far less green pastures. They're gone, Bill. Very happy they're gone." That’s Donald Trump not just telling this very Christian audience that he’s very happy that John McCain is dead, but also hoping out loud that he’s somewhere … less than green.
And really, the impact of the moment is lost without listening to just how Trump says this. The joy he displays over McCain’s death, the sneer with which he considers the idea of eternal torture, it’s all … something.
Trump also informed the audience that, had he not been elected in 2016, Iran “would have conquered Saudi Arabia” and the whole Middle East. How this would have happened, he doesn’t say. But he doesn’t have to, because it’s definitely in the Big Lie category, where explanation only gets in the way.
That was just Donald Trump’s morning, before he came back to the White House to explain that open borders means children drowning in rivers and border deaths are the fault of Democrats.