On Monday, at the White House, in order to placate the pathological narcissism and delusions of grandeur of America’s president, European leaders one after another fawned over Donald Trump even while each knew they were actually meeting with him to try to contain his worst impulses.

They nodded and smiled as he described each of them in terms of their personal relationship with Trump. Periodically, they would go along with Trump’s ravings, as when the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen smiled and seemed to agree as Trump characterized his non-deal trade “deal” between the EU and the US as the biggest trade deal ever (even though details remain to be worked out and big parts of it were promises by the Europeans to do things everyone knows they cannot and will not do.)

“Mr. Emperor, your clothes are so splendid! You don’t look a thing like a fat naked lunatic with ballooning cankles!” (Cankles which, as reported elsewhere on this website, were strategically hidden from view by the strategic placement of a model of Air Force One repainted in Trump’s preferred livery.)

Earlier, the press, covering Trump’s meeting Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky prior to the meeting of the two with the Europeans, raved about how the meeting was somehow more “normal” than the last time Trump and Zelensky met in the Oval Office. This despite the fact that the session involved a bizarre series of press exchanges in which Trump ranted and unleashed a torrent of lies about subjects that had little or nothing to do with peace in Ukraine—from voting by mail to his authoritarian show of force in Washington, D.C.

That said, craziest of all may be Trump’s detached-from-reality catechism about how he was the world’s peacemaker. He asserted again and again that he has ended half a dozen wars this year already. Single-handedly. (Except he hasn’t.) He was even heard in a hot mic moment, bragging that he thinks Putin wants to........

© The Daily Beast