What did Donald Trump do today?

He called the federal judicial system a "joke."

Speaking from the White House about yesterday's terror attack in New York, Trump called the American justice system a "joke" and a "laughingstock" and suggested that the deliberative following of due process is the reason that terror attacks occur.

That was a horrible event, and we have to stop it, and we have to stop it cold. We also have to come up with punishment that’s far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now. They’ll go through court for years. And at the end, they’ll be — who knows what happens. We need quick justice and we need strong justice — much quicker and much stronger than we have right now. Because what we have right now is a joke and it’s a laughingstock. And no wonder so much of this stuff takes place. 

Later, Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied that Trump had said any of this.

Q Why did the President call the U.S. justice system a joke and a laughingstock during his comments in the Cabinet?

MS. SANDERS: That's not what he said.

But, of course, it was what he said. Pressed for clarification, Sanders insisted that Trump was talking about the judicial "process" rather than the judicial system.

MS. SANDERS: He said that process. He said the process has people calling us a joke and calling us a laughingstock.

Sanders did not explain the distinction between the "system" and the "process," or how the judicial system was inviting further terrorist attacks, or who other than Trump is afraid people are laughing at it, or what parts of due process Trump wanted to do away with.

Why should I care about this?

• Attacks on the public's faith in American democracy are bad whether they are coming from terrorists, hostile foreign powers, or the president himself.

• Until today, Trump seemed more concerned that the federal justice system was working too quickly and too effectively.

• Trying to undermine an independent judiciary is what authoritarians do.