It's not enough for President Trump to argue with his congressional overseers or call them wrong. It's not even enough to allege their oversight of his administration is politically motivated, as so many presidents have. For Trump, the people trying to exert checks and balances on him are debased.
"These are sick people," Trump told a massive rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., last night.
He was referring specifically to Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). You can see what he said below.
Obviously, this is not new for Trump. And it clearly went over well with the crowd in Grand Rapids. It went over well, on Fox News, too, where the hosts laughed along even as they said it was inappropriate, particularly when Trump calls Schiff "pencil-neck."
But what is Trump mad at? He's mad at Nadler for demanding documents from 81 Trump associates in an effort to create at least a partial public record of the material that Special Counsel Robert Mueller gathered, and which may never be released to the public or Congress, which very much wants it to do oversight. Schiff still believes the Trump campaign is guilty of "collusion," which is a non-legal term not to be confused with the crime of conspiracy.
Schiff detailed exactly why he remains disturbed in a morning hearing before Trump flew to Michigan. Trump surely heard about it, or at least the demand by Republicans on the committee that Schiff resign, which prompted the recitation.
The hearing lasted hours, but I excerpted the four-minute recitation below.