Trump Humiliated by Iran, Comey Flops as Aides Leak: He’s “Frustrated”

Donald Trump is suddenly bumping up against limits in many areas at once. Top aides just leaked to The Atlantic that he’s “frustrated” with his inability to force Iran’s hand with his increasingly deranged threats. In the case of Trump’s bogus efforts to prosecute James Comey, we just learned that he personally demanded briefings in real time about interrogations of him. That reveals in deeply humiliating fashion his extraordinary personal involvement in the case and makes it more likely it’ll get tossed. His acting DNI chief Bill Pulte is boasting about firing “deep state” denizens even though this may not have actually happened. To make sense of all this, we talked to Talking Points Memo editor-at-large David Kurtz, author of the excellent “Morning Memo” newsletter. We discuss the legal ins-and-outs of these new developments, why there’s some cause for optimism that Trump is being meaningfully constrained, how our institutions are nonetheless on a knife’s edge, and what the endgame of Trump’s attempted authoritarian takeover might look like. Listen to this episode here.