If you missed Donald Trump’s press conference earlier today, it’s no exaggeration to say it was straight out of Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty.

Careening between anger, lies, and bizarre lapses into free association, Trump proved to the entire world that he has indeed lost his freaking mind.

When the 77-minute surreal video exhibit had concluded, CNN cut back to Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer, and Tapper wasted no time slicing the unhinged Trump apart. But he began with this understatement of the day:

“It was a wild press conference.”

The purpose of the press conference had been to announce Trump’s new nominee to be Secretary of Labor after Andy Puzder withdrew his name. The new choice is Alexander Acosta. Tapper noted:

“He talked about [CNN reporter] Jim Acosta more than he talked about Alexander Acosta. He talked about Hillary Clinton more than he talked about Alexander Acosta.”

But mainly, it was, as Tapper rightly said:

“An airing of grievances.

“It was Festivus. It was complaints about the media. At one point he said the leaks were real but the news is fake, which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. He said things that were not true.”

And what are we as Americans to make of this lunatic who now inhabits the White House? Tapper had some thoughts on that, too:

“If you are a soldier in harm’s way right now, if you are a hungry child in Appalachia or the inner city, if you are an unemployed worker in the hollowed shell of a steel town, that’s not a president who seemed rather focused on your particular needs and wants. That’s a president that’s focused on his bad press. 

“A lot of Americans are going to watch that press conference and think, that guy wasn’t focused on me and I don’t know what he was focused on.”

What we witnessed today was the first act of a man who is slowly losing his mind and on his way to being consumed by his own madness and the hole he has dug for himself with his lies, treason, and treachery.

This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org