Firstly, on this fourth day of October, (which I’m dubbing “Trumptober” – awfully sweet and timely to lending itself to ‘Trump’s over’) what I believe will likely prove to be one of the last months of Trump’s presidency, I wish I could wrap the American people – and all those who do and have aspire/d to be American and all those who hold and have held the USA in high regard – in a long, tight hug. Feel it, I am squeezing up on you all tonight because this un-presidential and unprecedented experience is painful, destabilizing, and desperately worrying, and I wish I could extend a comforting embrace of solidarity, resilience, and hope in what otherwise feels like uncontrolled chaos. I would stay in that posture a little longer for those who’ve invested intellect, effort, time, money, careers to the study and execution of politics in this experimental democratic republic. I know the political science majors, the lawyers, the local politicians, the career government workers who have bought in and subscribed to the rule of law and the fundamental soundness of our institutional checks-and-balances are feeling the sting even a little deeper tonight.

To confirm what I think we all know, I captured some of the best descriptions of Trump’s disastrous week under impeachment inquiry as Commander in Chief.

“Donald Trump’s Oval Office performance-art masterpiece Wednesday was one for the ages, a pity-party, stompy-foot screech session by President Snowflake von Pissypants, the most put-upon man ever to hold the highest office in the land. If you watched his nationally televised press conference, Trump’s shrill, eye-popping hissy fit scanned like the end of a long, coke-fueled bender where the itchy, frenzied paranoia is dry-humping the last ragged gasps of the earlier party-powder fun.” – Scenes from a Meltdown. Rick Wilson, Daily Beast.

“[A]nyone who knows him will tell you that Trump, in a way, has no facade: What you see of him publicly is what you get all the time, although you may get more of it in private. Any intelligent person who watches Trump closely on television, and pays careful attention to his words on Twitter and in the press, should be able to tell you as much about his behavior as a mental-health professional could.” – Unfit for Office. George T. Conway III, The Atlantic.

“Here’s a quick recap of Tuesday’s address: Trump wants to empower American citizens, but only if those citizens are Trump voters. He believes in free speech, but only for himself and the white supremacist ilk he’s emboldened. He thinks women ought to have rights, but not their right to bodily autonomy. He believes in religious liberty, as long as it’s not for Muslims. He thinks every child “is a sacred gift from God,” unless that child was born outside the United States, in which case he’ll condemn them to die in federal custody.” – In Which Trump Reminded the Global Community How Hateful He Really Is. Merrite Johnson, Ms. Magazine.

“[W]hat is frightening, and undeniable, is that Trump is not just employing conspiracy theories as part of a propaganda campaign. He actually believes them. He seems convinced that an intelligence cabal — involving two of the United States’ closest allies — sought to overturn his election as president. This would indeed be a dangerous scandal — if it were even remotely true.” – Trump’s anti-impeachment rhetoric has already gone too far. Michael Gerson, The Washington Post.

“[I]n summary, Trump on Thursday explicitly asked two countries — one that’s heavily dependent on U.S. military aid to keep Russia at bay, the other that’s locked in negotiations with the United States to end a bitter trade war — to investigate a leading Democratic challenger for the presidency in 2020 and his son. The president has famously said that he’s not sorry about anything. He means that too.” – What Impeachment? Trump Reiterates Call for Foreign Governments to Investigate Foes. John Healey, The LA Times.  

“At what point do we say enough of this? Every day there’s a new episode of Presidential Meltdown, where some event during which the world’s most powerful man is meant to be conducting the affairs of state almost instantaneously plummets into some grotesque spectacle. Not every news conference and press gaggle can be co-opted into an opportunity for the president to run through his litany of grievances—petty and grand—in a functioning democratic state. But that is our current reality, another dimension of l’état, c’est Don… What followed was a series of rants, some of them five minutes or more uninterrupted, in which Trump engaged in his stream-of-consciousness style in which no sentence gets finished and no syntax goes unpunished. Does he even know what he’s talking about? These seem to be fragments of Fox Newsian conspiracy babble bursting out of his mouth at odd intervals, colliding in his decrepit brain like bumper cars until one can go shooting forth into the world. Oh, and of course he lied, like when he said the “transcript” of his call with the Ukrainian president was “exact” and “word-for-word”—it said on the damn readout that it wasn’t verbatim.” – Finland’s President just got a Taste of Trump’s Now Daily Meltdowns. Jack Holmes, Esquire.

“Trump went on to characterize the memo about that call released last week by the White House as “exact” and “word for word” — even though it says on its very first page that it is not in fact a transcript. That sort of blatant lying would be major news coming from the mouth of any other president, but it’s par for the course with Trump. But what was abnormal even for him was how upset he became with Jeff Mason of Reuters when Mason tried to follow up and get him to answer a question he dodged… Moments later, Trump attacked CNN as “corrupt people,” then abruptly ended the news conference. More laughter could be heard moments after Trump walked out of the room. Indeed, the spectacle would’ve been funny if the guy behaving so erratically wasn’t president of the United States.” – The Finnish President was all of us at Trump’s Latest Unhinged Press Conference. Aaron Rupar, Vox.

“If you were a Republican watching Trump’s Wednesday news conference with the president of Finland, you would not have been reassured. That he would unleash a blizzard of lies is by now to be expected, but perhaps more important was how angry, aggrieved and petulant he was, lashing out at his opponents and the assembled reporters alike. It showed that, regardless of whether you agree with him that this is all a witch hunt, Trump is most definitely not in control of his emotions and reactions.” – Trump’s angry, bizarre, self-defeating impeachment strategy. Paul Waldman, The Plum Line.

Maybe it’s not a surprise that after all of this colorful, questioning commentary, Trump suggested he should start his own news network.