He was shouting into the phone

Peter Baker and Eileen Sullivan at the Times have more on that lunatic phone call Fox News had with the so-called president of the US. They make clear how full-on crazy it was.

They start with a little booboo he made on the Stormy Daniels thing.

The president acknowledged that Mr. Cohen represents him in connection with Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic film actress known as Stormy Daniels who has asserted that she had extramarital sexual relations with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen paid Ms. Clifford $130,000shortly before the 2016 presidential election as part of what she now calls a “hush agreement.”

But Mr. Trump said Mr. Cohen did nothing wrong in that matter. Mr. Cohen handled just “a tiny, tiny little fraction” of his legal work, Mr. Trump said. “But Michael would represent me and represent me on some things,” the president said in a telephone call to “Fox & Friends,” his favorite cable television show. “He represents me, like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me.”

See that’s a booboo because the other day he said the opposite. Michael Avenatti was all over it.

Michael Avenatti, Ms. Clifford’s attorney, quickly seized on the president’s comments, suggesting they would help her lawsuit trying to nullify the 2016 nondisclosure agreement by proving Mr. Trump’s involvement in the effort to keep her quiet before the election.

“Thank you @foxandfriends for having Mr. Trump on this morning to discuss Michael Cohen and our case,” he wrote on Twitter. “Very informative.”

He went on MSNBC and CNN to reinforce his point. “This case gets better every day, every hour, and one of the reasons why it gets better is that they step in to every trap that we lay,” Mr. Avenatti said on CNN.

“The president’s statements this morning are very, very damaging to him in our case,” Mr. Avenatti added. “It directly contradicts what he said on Air Force One relating to his knowledge, or lack thereof, of the agreement of $130,000.”

He said that “it is going to add considerable momentum to our efforts to depose the president and place him under oath, because now we have two contrary statements, made within the same month, relating to what he knew about the agreement, what he didn’t know, what his relationship was with Michael Cohen and we’re going to utilize that statement today to argue for his deposition.”

And that wasn’t even the craziest part.

The president’s discussion of Mr. Cohen’s legal troubles came during an expansive, wide-ranging and at times rambling half-hour telephone interview on Fox. At times, it sounded as if he was shouting into the phone.

Without being asked, Mr. Trump hit on many of his favorite subjects, including his win in the Electoral College in 2016, the no-knock F.B.I. raid on the home of his former campaign chairman, Paul J. Manafort, and a CNN debate during the Democratic primaries in 2016 when Hillary Clinton’s campaign got advance warning of some of the questions, according to emails stolen by Russians and released by WikiLeaks.

In other words he perseverated, as he so often does.

Unprompted, he attacked former Secretary of State John Kerry (“the worst negotiator I’ve ever seen”), “Sleepy Eyes” Chuck Todd of “Meet the Press” on NBC News (“the guy shouldn’t even be on the show”) and Andrew G. McCabe, the fired former deputy director of the F.B.I. (part of a “crooked” bureau leadership). And the president indicated that he had watched a CNN town-hall-style program on Wednesday night featuring James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director he fired last year, who is now one of his toughest critics (“a lying leaker”).

Even the Fox hosts seemed concerned as the president railed at length about the “fake news” media. “I’m not your doctor, Mr. President, but I would recommend you watch less of them,” one of the hosts, Brian Kilmeade, told him.

Even the Fox hosts noticed how batshit crazy he sounds. Even Fox hosts are not immune to nuclear weapons.

Mr. Trump presented himself as the victim of a far-reaching conspiracy by an establishment out to stop him from changing the system. “I’m fighting a battle against a horrible group of deep-seated people, drain the swamp, that are coming up with all sorts of phony charges against me, and they’re not bringing up real charges against the other side,” he said. “So we have a phony deal going on, and it’s a cloud over my head.”

Tourette’s also? “Drain the swamp” in the middle of a sentence?

Democrats cited the president’s latest attacks on the Justice Department and Mr. Mueller’s office to argue for legislation approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday to bar Mr. Trump from firing Mr. Mueller without cause. That bill now goes to the full Senate.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Mr. Trump’s comments were “embarrassing to America.”

“The president seems to live in an alternative reality,” Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor. “He says things that are patently false and he thinks just by saying them they become true. The amount of 180-degree turns, name calling and blaming — you watch the president this morning and the way he acted, it is so unbecoming of a president and democracy.”

Excruciatingly so.

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