What's going on with Trump?

1.  You know what else has gone missing since election day?  -- I mean something else besides the caravan bringing those "hordes of bad people" to storm our southern border.  Yeah, I mean those "hordes" of women with children in strollers, with nary a gun amongst them, that we were warned were so dangerous.    The hordes that Trump apparently forgot all about when election night was over.

Also MIA is the 10% middle class tax cut that President Trump trumpeted during another campaign stunt.   Republicans are acting as thought the less said about it, the better -- especially since they lost control of the House.  Newly elected Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy said it had been conditional on Republicans winning both houses of congress.   Didn't happen.    And the tax cut won't happen either.

Who would've ever guessed?

2.  Our president is reportedly in a bad mood.   It's beyond pouting and tweeting, they say.   It's gone to the level of raging and foot-stomping -- and firing people.   It seems that he blames his advisers for failing to convince him that he would get media criticism for not going to Arlington Cemetery to say a few words on Veterans Day.

Gee, what a surprise!   People actually want their president to honor our brave, fallen soldiers on Veterans Day?    And the media criticizing him for failing to do so?   Now who could ever have anticipated that?  Especially coming on the heels of his letting a little rain keep him from going to the U.S. World War I soldiers' cemetery in France -- and then that snotty little Emmanuel Macron dared to make a speech, with Trump sitting there, decrying the "nationalism" that Trump had himself embraced a few days before.   Such a weakling, that Macron.   We ought to cut off all deals with France.

3.   Last week, when he was already well into being pissed off about the increasing losses in the midterm election, the president held a news conference in the White House.    CNN's reporter Jim Acosta, who tends to be a bit tough with his questions, did it again, asking about that "nationalism" thing . . .  and it really made Trump so mad.   He called Acosta a terrible person and refused to take another question from him.   When Acosta balked at giving up the microphone, Trump railed at him for being rude -- and subsequently Acosta was barred from access to the White House -- even though he is CNN's chief White House correspondent.  Trump claims the prerogative to choose which reporters can come to the White House.

CNN has now sued the administration, citing an assault on the first amendment and interfering not only with Acosta's free speech but also CNN's.    Fox News was one of the first news organizations to file a similar brief in solidarity with CNN in support of a free press.  Now some 50 news organizations have signed or otherwise lent their support to CNN.    There was a preliminary hearing before a judge on Wednesday, asking for an injunction to prevent the barring, pending a full hearing.   The judge has not yet rendered his opinion.

4.   But you don't need all these stories to know that the president is in a foul mood.   Just look at his face whenever he appears in public.   Such a deep scowl, such anger and fear showing in his eyes.   I've never seen him so down.  Theories abound:    the midterm results;  the Mueller investigation coming closer and closer.   But perhaps the best explanation came from Matt Miller, former spokesman for the Justice Department speaking on Nicole Wallace's MSNBC show.

According to Miller's theory, Trump has spent the last three days huddled with his lawyers crafting his written answers to questions from Mueller (in lieu of an in person interview).   Miller suggests, quite rightly I think, that arrogant narcissists like Trump do not actually perceive the depth of their legal vulnerability until they are forced to answer questions, either in court or in writing for the court.   Then they finally get some inkling of what we've known all along.    Trump is in a whole lot of trouble, and he can't just click his ruby red shoes, hear the roar of his rally crowds, and suddenly make it all go away.

It's all very real . . . and it's bad.

Ralph