White House officials routinely insist that Donald Trump is focused on the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak. And while I have no doubt that these claims are true, the president is also letting folks know that he has plenty of other interests on his mind, too.
On Thursday, Trump tweeted that he still wants to know “what led to, and happened with, the illegal attempted ‘coup’ of the duly elected President of the United States.” In reality, there was no such attempt, just as there was no criminal scheme against him.
On Sunday morning, the president tweeted about a potential “treasure trove” of information in Hillary Clinton’s emails.
On Sunday afternoon, Trump tweeted about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) making intemperate comments about the Supreme Court two weeks ago.
Also on Sunday afternoon, he tweeted that he’s “strongly considering” rewarding Michael Flynn with “a full pardon.”
On Sunday night, after the latest Democratic presidential primary debate, Trump embraced his Pundit in Chief role, tweeting, “I must say, that was a VERY boring debate.” This was followed by three more tweets about the debate this morning. A charitable interpretation of these presidential missives is that he’s trying to bring a little normalcy during a challenging time for the public — and for Donald Trump, “normal” is whining about coups, Clinton, Democrats, and imagined judicial mistreatment of his close associates. A less charitable interpretation is that the president, who should be directing all of his energies into the ongoing public-health crisis, has the attention span of a fruit fly. Sure, the president cares about the global pandemic, but he can’t quite pull himself away from the political issues that fuel him.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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