What did Donald Trump do today?
He let Vanity Fair magazine troll-bait him once again.
The occasion for this Twitter outburst (part of a pre-dawn spree that included swipes at media reporting on his conflicts of interest and the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the election) was a negative review of the Trump Grill.
Vanity Fair's editor, Graydon Carter, has a long history of successfully provoking Trump. In the January 1988 issue of Spy magazine, Carter called Trump a "short-fingered vulgarian," prompting Trump to send Carter pictures of his hands for years afterwards. The joke was revived for the 2016 campaign and used by Trump's primary opponents, which eventually led to Trump referring to the size of his penis during a presidential debate.
Why should anyone care about this?
- If a magazine editor can provoke Trump this easily, then America's enemies can too.
- A bad restaurant review is nothing compared to the problems that a president faces.
- It's probably a bad sign if a president complains about the media three different times before sunrise.