Before he got around to threatening James Comey, Donald Trump started his Twitter morning with yet another tirade about the media. Apparently he’s upset that the media has noticed the ever-changing explanations he and his underlings are offering for James Comey’s firing. “The Fake Media is working overtime today,” Trump starts off, ignoring that if so, it’s because he keeps offering up new and different stories to cover, and figuring out which of them are the fakest takes time and work. Then he goes on to glance off of reality (that his story has changed), try to blame staff, and suggest something that this week’s events prove would not improve the situation, truthwise.
Translation: I went on television and told a truth that blatantly contradicted the lie I had had my staffers offering up, and now I need to shift the blame to my staff and the media, because it’s impossible to conceive that I ever screw up.
But, uh, Donald? “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???” One, when you’ve repeatedly flirted with the idea of canceling press briefings, this looks like still more blatant making of excuses for what you've wanted to do all along. And two, there was a written statement on the Comey firing. It said “President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.” And then you went out and told the world that it wasn't true.
This may be the rare case where Donald Trump told the truth—that he was going to fire Comey with or without Rosenstein and Sessions giving him an excuse—but it’s clear that written responses from his press shop would not increase accuracy.