Snowflake Trump Complains He's Melting, Turns Up Heat

After a rather testy first appearance as press secretary designed to cover for the glaring insecurities of President Donald J. Trump, Sean Spicer was out and delivering his first true press conference yesterday. He took a notably more collegial tone, and his lies (that an apology he'd personally accepted hadn't happened, that Cabinet nominees hampered by their own conflicts of interest and late paperwork were being unduly held up by Democratic Senators, and that federal government jobs had undergone a "dramatic expansion" under Barack Obama) were more in line with traditional political spin. All seemed to be righting itself in the world of press v. press secretary relations.

Perhaps it went all too right, as Spicer eventually found himself saying the kinds of things about Donald Trump that we have: "But I will tell you that it's not -- it's not just about a crowd size. It's about this constant -- you know, he's not going to run. Then if he runs, he's going to drop out. Then if he runs, he can't win.... And I think that it's just unbelievably frustrating when you're continually told it's not big enough, it's not good enough, you can't win."

You heard it from the press secretary. Donald Trump is acting out because people are telling him he's not big enough.

This is an insight into Donald Trump's psyche that we've all sort of assumed, but now have had confirmed by one of the men working closest with him on a day-to-day basis. It explains why his staff put their own people in the crowd during a speech to the CIA Saturday and at his first and only press conference two weeks ago. When Trump is afraid his audience doesn't like him, his handlers pad the audience with friendly, cheering faces, like a human security blanket.

One might think that putting all of this out there and being honest about Donald's insecurities would mean that his team was also working with him to move past old debates, to avoid getting into it with the media when he doesn't need to, and to show everyone that he can wear his big-boy pants now that he is the President of the United States of America as a full-time job. One might think that, but one would most certainly be wrong.

Despite offering no evidence to support his claim, Donald Trump continued Monday night to peddle the lie that he would have won the popular vote if not for illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants cannot vote. They cannot register to vote (just as even a 16-year-old citizen who's legally getting a driver's license can't register to vote). They cannot show up to a polling place where they are not registered and just say they'd like a ballot, no questions asked. That's not how any of this works, and Glenn Kessler for the Washington Post produced a pretty thorough piece discrediting Trump's claim and the origins of the "illegal voter" myth when Trump first started circulating it in November.

Donald Trump was fairly and thoroughly bested by Hillary Clinton for the popular vote in November. That's not how we choose our president here. Fine. But if Sean Spicer is going to come out and encourage the media not to talk about the litany of ways Donald Trump hasn't been big enough or good enough, maybe he should convince Trump not to broach it himself.

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