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It\u2019s not easy being President, according to Donald Trump<\/a>. For one thing, as he told the crowd at a rally in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday night, you have to sit through television programs that you don\u2019t like\u2014such as the Democratic Presidential debates. \u201cI\u2019m supposed to watch. It\u2019s, like, my job<\/em>\u2014try and watch, watch the competition. But it\u2019s like watching death. It\u2019s death. Those debates are boring.\u201d The comparison of death to dullness might have been a little off-key for someone who almost triggered a war with Iran last week. But Trump was prepared to be heroic about the arduous viewing service that was asked of him. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to sit through those things for two and a half hours\u2014you\u2019ve got to really be committed to the country.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the remarkable aspects of the Toledo rally was how variegated Trump\u2019s anger at what comes out of his television can be, even if his target is, in many ways, an imaginary television. For example, there is a serious debate going on about the legal basis<\/a> for the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, the Iranian general whom the United States killed in Iraq earlier this month, and an accompanying push to make sure that any wider war has congressional authorization. (For too many years, the post-9\/11 authorizations for the use of military force have been used for too many tenuously related military actions.) But according to Trump, it was the media that made it impossible for him to consult with Congress or, apparently, with anybody sensible.<\/p>\n Imagine, he asked his supporters, if, with Suleimani in its sights, the Administration had called Representative Adam Schiff, of California, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. \u201cSchiff is a big leaker,\u201d Trump said. \u201cYou know he leaks to Crazy CNN.\u201d (No relation, presumably, to \u201cCrazy Bernie,\u201d an epithet that Trump has also used several times.) Trump continued, \u201cNot too many people are watching CNN. But he leaks! So he\u2019ll say, \u2018You know, uh, off the record, I\u2019ve got to hurry up because everyone\u2019s watching me in the hallway with my cell phone\u2019\u00a0\u201d\u2014apparently, Trump is even bothered by background shots in cable-news footage\u2014\u201c\u00a0\u2018off the record, they\u2019ve got the No. 1 terrorist in the world, Suleimani, and they\u2019re going to get him, they\u2019re going to take him out in the next ten minutes. Please, don\u2019t tell anybody I told you about that!\u2019\u00a0\u201d In Trump\u2019s alternative-reality tale, CNN tells, anyway: \u201c\u00a0\u2018We have breaking news! President Trump, within the next twenty, twenty-five minutes, looks to be taking out terrorist General Suleimani! He\u2019s going to do it\u2014should be happening about the next twenty minutes, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen.\u2019\u00a0\u201d Then he, Trump, would ask the military, \u201c\u00a0\u2018How\u2019d you do, fellows?\u2019\u00a0\u201d Only to be told, \u201c\u00a0\u2018I don\u2019t know, sir, he disappeared!\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n This is not how Congress operates; this is not how CNN operates. It has become commonplace for Trump to decry major media outlets as the enemy of the people, though he did say on Thursday night that there is \u201cone good one\u201d\u2014presumably Fox News. What the President proposed in Toledo, though, was that the supposed perfidy of the media was a reasonable excuse for him to ignore his legal and constitutional obligations regarding congressional oversight. Indeed, he suggested that even members of Congress don\u2019t have a good-faith commitment to oversight. Instead, \u201cThey want us to tell them so that they could leak it to their friends in the corrupt media.\u201d The crowd booed loudly, and the brief interval was enough for Trump\u2019s mind to make another, rather garbled connection: \u201cYou\u2019ve got to say, though, that\u2019s a lot of media, right? That\u2019s the way the Academy Awards used to look when it was successful! Then they started hitting us all the time and it became unsuccessful. I love it. I love it, actually!\u201d (No word on whether he is cheering for \u201cMarriage Story,\u201d \u201cLittle Women,\u201d or \u201cThe Irishman.\u201d)<\/p>\n And what, Trump went on, is the story with prizes these days, anyhow? This was another complaint about the media\u2014\u201cThey get Pulitzer Prizes for being wrong!\u201d\u2014that segued into a complaint about the failure of the world to honor Donald Trump. \u201cI\u2019m going to tell you about the Nobel Peace Prize,\u201d he said, explaining that he\u2019d \u201csaved a country\u201d but that, scandalously, the prize had gone to the leader of that country. (He seemed to be talking about Ethiopia, whose Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, was awarded the prize for attaining peace with Eritrea<\/a>, which was not a Trump achievement; an Ethiopian official told reporters that Trump was likely referring to his role in a separate dispute between Ethiopia and Egypt, involving a dam.) \u201cBut, you know, that\u2019s the way it is,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n Adam Schiff appeared to be on Trump\u2019s mind because of the impeachment. Trump said that even if he had called a meeting with members of Congress about the Suleimani operation, Schiff\u2014\u201cAdam, you little pencil-neck!\u201d\u2014would have said, \u201c\u00a0\u2018I can\u2019t make it now because I\u2019m trying to impeach Trump!\u2019\u00a0\u201d He derided the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, as \u201cNervous Nancy,\u201d and sounded amazed that anyone would think that he should talk to her. \u201cThe radical Democrats have never been more extreme than they are now. They are stone-cold crazy,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThey\u2019re vicious, horrible people.\u201d As for the substance of the impeachment charges? \u201cBy the way, did you see, I did nothing wrong.\u201d The Democrats were just \u201cwasting America\u2019s time with demented hoaxes and crazy witch hunts.\u201d<\/p>\n And, of course, boring television. Assuming that Trump has been making that sacrifice and watching the Democratic debates, it doesn\u2019t appear that he\u2019s been listening very carefully. He spent a couple of minutes mocking Beto O\u2019Rourke, the former congressman from El Paso, who left the race months ago. Trump\u2019s griping veered between O\u2019Rourke\u2019s supposedly outrageous concern about the effects of fossil fuels to the attention that he got from the media, which included a profile<\/a> in Vanity Fair<\/em>. (\u201cRemember he had the cover of the magazine? I won\u2019t mention the magazine\u2014sleazebag magazine.\u201d) At least print media still catches Trump\u2019s eye, in addition to cable.<\/p>\n The President did bring out his stock insults for the remaining Democratic contenders, whom he called \u201csome real beauties\u201d: \u201cPocahantas is slipping badly\u201d; \u201cCrazy Bernie, he\u2019s surging\u201d; Buttigieg reminds him of Alfred E. Neuman<\/a>, and his name is hard to pronounce, \u201cso what they do is they call him Mayor Pete.\u201d Joe Biden \u201cdoesn\u2019t know the difference between Iran and Iraq\u201d and his son Hunter started making a lot of money \u201cas soon as Sleepy Joe became Vice-President.\u201d This was a reference to Hunter Biden\u2019s role in the story underlying the impeachment case against Trump, who, among other things, is alleged to have threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless its President opened an investigation into the Biden family. The Senate impeachment trial should get under way in short order. No doubt, it will make for some good television\u2014not boring at all. Trump may not like sitting through it. But the programming of the Presidency is not entirely up to him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n