Trump: chutzpah, sollipsism and denial in almost equal measures

As American federal politics continues to implode, it has reached the four-clowns-in-a-toy-car level of circus with the almost simultaneous announcement of Michael Cohen's damning plea deal and Paul Manafort's indictment on eight counts of tax and bank fraud. Donald Trump's response, though, is almost beyond belief, even though we have already become quite accustomed to Trump's level of solipsism and denial.

As Cohen was found guilty of tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations on Tuesday, baldly stating in the process that Trump had directed him to make hush payments to two women with whom he had previously had affairs, Trump asserted, against all the evidence, that the campaign finance violations were not in fact a crime, and contented himself with quipping that Cohen is incompetent and that people searching for a good lawyer should look elsewhere. While that may be true it is a long way from the point. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave the official Trump line: "Just because Michael Cohen made a plea deal doesn't mean that that implicates the president on anything". Well, not strictly true, as the renewed talk about impeachment indicates.

An unrepentant Trump has also continued to support the discredited Manafort as a "brave man" for not cooperating with the authorities.

The kicker, though, came in an interview on Trump's favourite TV show, Fox & Friends, on the subject of his possible impeachment. The President of the United States quips, "I don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job ... I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think that everybody would be very poor ... Because without this thinking [indicating his own head], you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe in reverse".

Once you figure out what he is actually saying, there is little one can do or say, other than to just sit there with dropped jaw. Chutzpah does not even cover it. He truly believes that he is single-handedly holding up the whole stock market (and possibly the universe).