Donald Trump Insults the Media, Jeff Flake, John McCain, and NAFTA at His Phoenix Rally

At his campaign-style rally in Phoenix Tuesday night, President Donald Trump reconfirmed one of the laws of his presidency: For every sane, measured presidential action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

One day after striking a sober tone in a coherent speech announcing his administration’s new Afghanistan policy, the president was back in peak demagogic form in Phoenix, raging against his enemies, whining about his unfair treatment in Washington, undercutting his employees, and telling obvious lies, all to the raucous delight of his screaming fans.

Trump—who, we must reiterate, is the president of the United States—caromed from topic to topic, beginning by rehashing his comments on racist violence in Charlottesville and the media’s supposedly unfair response to them.

“They don’t want to report that I spoke out forcefully against hatred, bigotry, and violence, and strongly condemned the neo-Nazis, the white supremacists, and the KKK,” Trump said. “I’m really doing this more than anything else—because you know where my heart is—to show you how damn dishonest these people are.”

The president of the United States then flirted with the idea of pardoning immigration hard-liner Sheriff Joe Arpaio (“I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want to cause any controversy, all right? But Sheriff Joe can feel good”), before proceeding to throwing oblique insults at Arizona’s Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake.