Donald Trump just gave something away

Donald Trump’s defense attorneys made the extraordinarily bizarre move on Thursday of asking the judge to amend the gag order specifically so that Trump could attack Stormy Daniels. It had zero chance of working. The only reason Trump’s attorney would have made such a pointless move was if Trump himself was demanding it.

It’s worth pointing out that Trump didn’t do this after David Pecker or Hope Hicks gave equally damning testimony against him. For that matter, after Jeff McConney gave damning testimony against Trump earlier this week, Trump fist bumped him.

Yet after Trump sat there and took what these other witnesses were dishing out, he’s now going into a maniacal rage over Stormy Daniels’ testimony. Sure, it’s personal, in the sense that Daniels testified about his sexual awkwardness and such. But still, why didn’t Trump go after Pecker like this?

Trump seems to be gradually taking more and more control over his defense as the trial goes on. So one could argue that he simply reached a breaking point by the time Stormy Daniels took the stand. But even if so, why isn’t he now demanding that people like Pecker be exempted from the gag order, so he can go after them as well? If Trump is forcing his attorneys to make nonsense filings in accordance with his rage, then why not go all the way with it?

It’s possible that Trump is uniquely afraid of Pecker (who has spent decades amassing dirty secrets on everyone), and Trump is still in love with Hicks (who was very nice to him on the stand even while helping to convict him). And while McConney also buried Trump with his testimony, he was polite about it.

To that end, Stormy Daniels was the first witness who took the stand and gave off a clear vibe that she strongly dislikes Trump. So even if Trump is sitting there in a confused dementia riddled haze and doesn’t really understand what anyone’s testimony means, and doesn’t even understand that this is a trial, Daniels may have triggered him simply by sounding hostile on the stand.

It’s also possible that Trump is so far gone that he doesn’t even remember last week having happened. For all we know, his mind may be so far gone that he no longer has any recollection of Pecker or Hicks having testified.

Trump did announce on Tuesday that he thought it was supposed to be the last day of the trial, so he clearly has no concept of timeframes anymore. Trump also announced this week that he’d just spotted Lawrence O’Donnell in the courtroom and hadn’t seen him in years, when in fact Trump had seen O’Donnell in the courtroom the week before.

So it’s possible that Trump simply has no idea or recollection of what’s going on. Stormy Daniels’ combative tone agitated him, so he told his attorneys that he was going to attack her, prompting them to try to get her removed from the gag order.

It can be tricky to try to parse what little might be left of Trump’s collapsing brain. If you’ve spent time around dementia patients, you know full well how much they tend to jump around from one confused notion to another, and how little rhyme or reason is involved. This is exacerbated by the fact that Trump isn’t just dementia riddled of late, he’s also clinically insane to begin with.