Trump was was trolling the country when he posted this yesterday, and it worked -- political commentators and ordinary Americans reacted with shock and outrage.
Not me. First, we already knew that he doesn't believe the law applies to him. We knew that in his first term, when he repeatedly said that Article II of the Constitution allows him to do "whatever I want."
In his second term, he's clearly operating as if the law doesn't constrain him.
But the fact that he decided to say this tells me he's worried about the public response to what he's doing. He's concerned that a series of losses in court will make some of his supporters think he looks like a loser, so he wants to assert that he's right and the courts are wrong.
This is the second time in two days that Trump has shown signs of concern about public opinion. The first was this:
President Trump and billionaire DOGE chief Elon Musk accused the media and pundits on Friday of trying to create tension between them in an effort to drive them apart.Nothing to see here, folks! Trump is telling the public here. I'm still the president -- really!
“They want a divorce. They want you two to start hating each other,” Fox News host Sean Hannity told Trump and Musk in a clip from a lengthier interview that will air next week.
Trump, 78, agreed with the Fox News host and revealed that Musk had already warned him about the media’s effort to sow discord....
“Actually, Elon called me and said, ‘You know, they’re trying to drive us apart.’ I said, ‘absolutely,’” Trump told the Fox News host....
“You know, they said, ‘We have breaking news. Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a cabinet meeting tonight at 8:00,’” Trump joked.
“And I say, it’s just so obvious they are so bad at it. I used to think they were good at it. They’re actually bad at it,” he argued. “Because if they were good at it, I’d never be president.”
If Trump (and Musk) have an Achilles' heel, it's the desperate need to be loved and admired. It's clear that we need to keep suing Trump, even if he defies the courts, because losing in court feels shameful to him. (And sometimes he doesn't defy the courts.) And we need to keep saying that Musk is the real president, because it gets under Trump's skin. It's clear that Trump doesn't want to rid himself of Musk -- I can't tell whether he sees Musk as the successful son he never had, as a "killer" like Roy Cohn who can make things happen for him in unsavory ways, or as an authoritarian dictator he sees as a hero, a tech Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un. Nevertheless, Trump wants us to think Musk isn't his boss. So let's keep saying he is.
