Even by Trump Standards, These Unhinged Rants on Fox & Friends Were Exceptionally Crazy

Nobody reins in Donald Trump when it’s interview time, and we’ve become used to—even exhausted by—the tirades, diatribes, harangues, philippics, rodomontades, whatever. Which makes it even more exceptional that our bug-eyed prez managed to surprise us this morning with a rant that was rambling and bitter that even the hosts on his favorite show, Fox & Friends, couldn’t rein him in.

I could go segment by segment pointing out the oddities here (and luckily, Aaron Rupar compiled them all for us on Twitter), but let’s start with him actually screaming about the FBI:

Trump gets very worked up talking about FBI raids of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen — he’s yelling — then tries to distance himself from Cohen: “I have nothing to do with his business.”

Says Cohen only dealt with “a tiny fraction” of his legal work pic.twitter.com/csE9ATZq0M

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018

Then he uses the topic of Kanye West to talk about black people, about which the less said the better:

.@foxandfriends steer Trump from being very worked up about Michael Cohen to talking about his bromance with Kanye West pic.twitter.com/MRccBk0YXX

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018

But the real gem of the interview comes in the next few clips, when the hosts try to get him to talk about specific issues, and he can’t stop ranting about fake news, and his inaugural crowds, and all the votes he got. The great comedy here comes from the timid interjections the hosts attempt, which Trump completely ignores:

TRUMP: “Everyone goes home & says, ‘you know, I really like Donald but I have watched on the news’ – they don’t know it’s fake news. I have taught them it is fake news -‘I watched on the news that he can’t win. So let’s go to the movie darling & we’ll come home & watch him lose'” pic.twitter.com/NRF7wzMSwC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018

Then, after a lot of “it’s going very well!” type nonsense about North Korea, he can’t resist hitting the media yet again, this time with an out-of-nowhere attack on Chuck Todd:

Trump rants about North Korea, uses anti-Semitic slur about Chuck Todd, and @foxandfriends hosts can barely get a word in pic.twitter.com/VDjRKNtroh

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018

As Trump hits his fake news peroration, the hosts try their best to interrupt, but are mere bulldozer fodder. Then Trump pulls off one of his great contradictions—describing news shows to exacting detail, and then claiming he doesn’t watch them. “I don’t watch NBC anymore,” he says, moments after railing against Chuck Todd:

Trump, who regularly live-tweets Fox News, claims he doesn’t have time to watch TV ???? pic.twitter.com/o2uqBS1li9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018

And the whole thing concludes, amazingly, with more yelling and a threat to obstruct the Justice Department:

Trump concludes @foxandfriends interview by screaming about conflicts of interest on Robert Mueller’s team, and promising to meddle more aggressively in the Department of Justice going forward. pic.twitter.com/ITak7tEEJJ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2018

The really funny thing is, in highlighting these clips, is that I’m leaving so much on the table—the fact that he didn’t buy his wife anything more than a card for her birthday, the “grade” he gives himself in office, his ability to pull together the biggest rally ever in D.C. if the urge struck, his extreme distaste for James Comey, a few threats for Iran, and a defense of his corrupt VA pick (who has since removed himself from consideration) that included the line “his son is a wonderful boy.”

This man…

…

…

is our president. God help us.

Update: Turns out, Trump managed to shoot himself in the foot with this appearance:

There you go: NY prosecutors cite Trump comments on Fox this am that Cohen did “a tiny, tiny little fraction” of his legal work as reason to expedite review of seized documents pic.twitter.com/qtkOIl7yFn

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 26, 2018