What did Donald Trump do today?

He warned that Senate Democrats would use "all sorts of tricks" against his nominees, like holding confirmation hearings.

Today, Trump posted on his private social media site that

"We just won a Historic Landslide and Mandate from the American People, but Senate Democrats are organizing to improperly stall and delay the confirmation process of many of our Great Nominees. They will try all sorts of tricks starting very soon. Republicans must not allow them to do that."

Trump once called his penchant for making things up and daring anybody to correct him "truthful hyperbole," but even by that standard, he did not win in a landslide. He received less than 50% of the popular vote, and beat Vice-President Kamala Harris by 1.5%.

The "trick" Trump apparently fears is that Senate Democrats will hold confirmation hearings on nominees who must be confirmed by the Senate. That is why he has demanded that his own party, which will control both houses of Congress in the coming year, shut down Congress entirely so that they can be appointed via a Constitutional provision known as a recess appointment. That would enable them to serve for the rest of the Congressional term without anyone asking questions about their fitness.

Even with a Republican majority in the Senate, Trump has good reason to be afraid of public hearings into many of his nominees. Many of them are billionaires, some have no apparent qualifications for the job Trump assigned to them, and some are struggling to receive even token support from within Trump's own party. For example, Trump's choice to lead the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, has done little to refute allegations—including those leveled by his own mother—that he is an untreated alcoholic with a history of sexual violence against women.

Trump may also be particularly worried about the embarrassment of seeing his choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., face questions from Americans' representatives in the Senate. Kennedy, who would be in charge of the United States' public health programs, is a conspiracy theorist whose only connection to dealing with disease outbreaks is helping to cause one. Kennedy threw his support to Trump late in the race after supporters started abandoning him after a series of increasingly bizarre or horrifying stories about committing sexual abuse, conducting a sexting-affair with a reporter covering him during the campaign, saying that COVID-19 was a bioweapon that deliberately spared Jews, contracting a parasite that literally ate part of his brain, and rehashing too many discredited "alternative" health theories to list.

Why does this matter?

• People who can't stand a few minutes' worth of scrutiny by the American public probably shouldn't be put in charge of the American government.

• No matter how much they believe otherwise, presidents are not kings, and they can't banish their opposition.