Reality show vs. reality

It was astonishing to see the President on Thursday bitterly lash out at critics and the news media as liars out to serve special interests, even as he, without a hint of self-awareness, claimed that “the tone is such hatred.” Astonishing to see him say he was handed “a mess” from his predecessor, given the healthy job growth and low unemployment he inherited.

Astonishing to see him insist that an administration that has rolled out a half-baked executive order, seen a Cabinet nominee withdraw and forced a national security adviser to resign in a hail of criticism “is running like a fine-tuned machine.”

Astonishing to see him get called out in real time on a misstatement — he claimed to have won the Electoral College by the largest margin since Reagan, which is not even close to true — and then mutter that he “was given that information.”

But stop, breathe and recall: Americans knew they were electing a different type of leader, one who strains mightily to be — or is perhaps constitutionally incapable of being — what we heretofore considered presidential.

It is no longer constructive to be worked into a tizzy every time he leaves those expectations in shards of glass on the White House floor.

What is worth seizing upon from Trump’s marathon, combative press conference were his robust defense of his former national security adviser and denials of contacts or coordination with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

What we know is that on the day President Obama imposed sanctions for its meddling in the election, then national security adviser-designate Michael Flynn had five conversations with Russia.

In at least one of those conversations, the subject of lifting those sanctions came up.

A private citizen making promises to a foreign power, especially one that has just interfered in a presidential election, is illegal and it is wrong.

Knowing of that prohibition, Flynn then proceeded to lie about those conversations to the public and to Vice President Pence, including flatly denying that the possibility of sanctions relief ever came up.

According to new reports, he even lied to the FBI, which would be a federal crime.

Trump, as he tells it, lost confidence in Flynn over the lie to Pence — but still believes he did nothing wrong.

Asked whether he directed Flynn to discuss sanctions with the Russians, Trump answered in the negative, but added, “I would have directed him to do it.”

It’s a revelatory admission: That despite the Logan Act, which explicitly bars such behavior, the President has no problem with a member of his team conducting back-channel negotiations with an American adversary even as the then-current President sought to apply sanctions.

But where Trump gladly admitted to supporting potential violations of law, he repeated his nothing-to-see-here line on Russian contacts more generally.

“Russia is a ruse,” he said. “I have nothing to do with Russia,” has no deals there and has “nothing to do with” WikiLeaks, whose receipt of Russian hacks influenced the election.

Ignoring the lady-doth-protest-too-much feel of the assertions, that’s either true or it’s not.

And did his campaign have constant contact with Russian officials during the presidential election? Trump was asked. And asked again. He wouldn’t answer.

Finally came this: “Nobody that I know of” spoke with the Russians during the campaign, said Trump.

It is the responsibility of Congress to probe this fertile terrain, and to do it now. If Congress will not do its job, a special prosecutor must.