What did Donald Trump do today?

He reacted very, very badly to criticism.

In a stunning editorial published this afternoon in the New York Times, a current serving senior administration official warned the American people that Trump's worst impulses were being restrained by a small group of staffers within the White House. 

This is the first time that a serving Trump official has so publicly admitted to "thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses." But stories of Trump's staffers and counselors keeping information from him, actively managing his mood swings, and--as Bob Woodward's forthcoming book reports--stealing documents from his desk to keep him from signing them--are common. 

Trump immediately accused the author of "TREASON" on Twitter and demanded that the New York Times identify the source "for National Security reasons." His anger, easily provoked even on relatively calm days, was described as "volcanic." 

So what?

• Criticizing the president is not treason--which is a crime punishable by death.

• Criticizing the president is not a threat to national security.

• Presidents who don't want to be called "impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective" shouldn't react to criticism with open fury and empty threats.

• In a competent administration, a president's own hand-picked appointees don't say things like this about him.