Petulant and unlikeable
LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV
NOVEMBER 15, 2018 12:00AM (UTC)
Donald Trump has had a very bad week, and the badness is going to keep on coming. When he went to bed on election night, Democrats had flipped about twenty seats in the House, and were forecast to lose as many as four or five in the Senate. At his press conference the next day, he crowed that Republicans would hold 55 seats in the Senate in the next congress and falsely said “Republicans dramatically outperformed historical precedents.”
With Democratic wins in Montana and Arizona, and the race in Florida still too close to call, Republicans could go into January with only 52 seats in the Senate. At this writing, Democrats have gained 33 seats, and may end up with as many as 40, with nine races still too close to call.
Trump’s mood at his press conference after the election went rapidly downhill from there. He escalated his feud with cable news network CNN and its White House correspondent Jim Acosta, famously telling Acosta to “put down the mic” and to “sit down” before he walked to the side of the lectern and, pointing his finger at Acosta, told him, "I tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN." He yelled at African American reporter April Ryan to “sit down,” refusing to take her questions, and later in the week called her “a loser” and “very nasty.” Then he went after the PBS Newshour reporter Yamiche Alcindor, calling her question about white nationalists gaining acceptance from Trump’s remarks “racist.”
By Friday, his mood was even darker. Stopping on the White House lawn on his way to depart for his trip to Paris, Trump laid into CNN reporter Abby Phillip, who had asked him whether his new Attorney General, Matthew Whitaker, would “rein in” the Russia probe of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. "What a stupid question that is," Trump said. "What a stupid question. But I watch you a lot. You ask a lot of stupid questions" ...
https://www.salon.com/2018/11/14/not-tough-on-allies-petulant-and-unlikeable-the-pout-monster-returns/