Madman

After Donald Trump's bizarre meltdown on Twitter yesterday, The New York Daily News published the most damning editorial of a President that I've ever read (link here).

The title makes it clear: "Donald Trump is a madman: The President's Wednesday Twitter spasm confirms what many Americans have long suspected."

Rather than summarize what they've written, I suggest you just click the link and read it. It's short and, if you're not familiar with the Twitter tirade, it will brief you on that as well.

They suggest that Trump is mentally unstable and that this is not a calculated distraction strategy. They may be right. The President does not seem to be mentally sound.

Nonetheless, I think there could be one and possibly two other explanations.

First, and less damning, perhaps Trump is just feeling totally bored and utterly smothered in the White House. He is not intellectually sophisticated nor well read, and both of those are requirements for the job.

So he's like a sullen junior college student trapped in a post-doctorate seminar on highly technical issues, he's lashing out in wild frustration.

He wants to be a celebrity, not a leader. He wants to do fun things with adoring crowds. After all, he famously offered Ohio's governor the Vice President slot and total him he'd be really in charge and Trump would just do the public events.

So he could be a mental lightweight cheerleader trapped in a seriously difficult grown-up job.

Second, and potentially more interesting to us, perhaps Trump lashed out because he learned some really horrible news about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's criminal investigation into the President, his businesses, his campaign, and his associates. Trump could have been informed that certain subpoenas were served or witnesses questioned.

This could mean Trump knows that Mueller has found his darker or darkest secrets. He could be freaking out the same way Richard Nixon must have freaked out when he learned White House aide Alexander Butterfield testified in an open hearing before Congress about the secret Oval Office taping system that tied the Watergate scandal up in a nice, neat bow.

Whatever the answer, the more Trump lashes out, the more unstable and unpresidential he acts, the more embarrassing for Republicans who continue to stand by him. Hopefully Trump will end in disgrace and all of his silent GOP enablers, too.