The Wall Street Journal editorial board torched Donald Trump's egomaniacal second term after his attack on John Bolton, describing it as "much worse than we imagined."
Trump ordering the FBI to target and search John Bolton's home and office because he has been a fierce critic is another symptom of his derangement.
The WSJ continues to refuse to be intimidated by demented Donald.
MSNBC's Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski shared portions of the editorial with the Morning Joe audience.
BRZEZINSKI: The piece, entitled Trump's Vendetta Campaign, targets John Bolton. Reads in part, quote, President Trump promised voters during his campaign for a second term that he had bigger things on his mind than retribution against opponents.
But it is increasingly clear that vengeance is a large part, maybe the largest part, of how he will define success in his second term.
His revenge campaign took an ominous turn Friday as the FBI agents raided the home and office of Mr. Trump's first term National Security Advisor John Bolton.
It's hard to see the raid as anything other than vindictive.
Mr. Bolton fell out of Mr. Trump's favor in the first term and then wrote a book about his experience in the White House while Mr. Trump was still president.
Mr. Trump tried and failed to block publication.
The president then claimed Mr. Bolton had exposed classified information, though the book had gone through an extensive pre-publication scrub at the White House for classified material.
Whether Mr. Trump ordered the FBI probe or not doesn't matter.
Mr. Patel knows what the president thinks about Mr. Bolton, and the president's minions in Trump 2 don't serve as check on his worst impulses the way grown-ups did in the first term.
The presidential id is now unchained.
Trump has no guardrails in place so his every whim on retribution of those that criticize him are being punished, while the FBI, DOJ and the Supreme Court aid him.
BRZEZINSKI: Kash Patel would not have ordered this is Trump didn't tell him to.
This is the kind of gratuitous viciousness that has increasingly defined Mr. Trump's return to office.
Mr. Bolton has continued to speak candidly about Mr. Trump's second-term decisions, pro and con, including in these pages this week.
The president may also hope the FBI raid will cause Mr. Bolton to shut up, though knowing him, we can't imagine that working.
The real offender here is a president who seems to think he can use the powers of his office to run vendettas.
We said this was one of the risks of a second Trump term, and it's turning out to be worse than we imagined.
Trump is using his power to run vendettas. That has always been his main goal. Kamala Harris warned us. So did Hillary Clinton.
I'm sure Trump's MAGA FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wished he could do something. Banning the WSJ from using the internet?
