At this point, I don’t know what there is left to say about Trump’s performance before the press this afternoon. Every synonym for “unhinged” that I can think of has already been claimed. And people have already written about all of the best parts, like the real-time fact-checking by NBC’s Peter Alexander when Trump claimed, falsely, that his was “the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan”, and the fact that Trump actually said “The greatest thing I could do is shoot that ship that’s 30 miles offshore right out of the water.” And, while it occurred to me that it would be interesting to rewatch the whole thing and count the number of times that he referred to “ratings,” I just can’t bring myself to do it. I barely got through it the first time, with the constant whining about the “mess” he’d inherited from Obama, and the convoluted attacks against the press. [I’m still trying to figure out what he meant when he said that, while the leaks were “absolutely real,” the news stories about them were “fake”.] One thing that I think is still worth talking about, though, is the mention by Trump that the leaks we’re seeing from the intelligence community, which he described as being criminal, were about to stop.

“I’ve called the Justice Department to look into the leaks,” Trump said. “Those are criminal leaks. They’re put out by people either in agencies… I think you’ll see it stoping because now we have our people in.”

[For someone who seemed to be quite fond of leaks in the past, when it was the likes of WikiLeaks and the Russians leaking embarrassing information about Secretary Clinton, he sure doesn’t seem to care for it much now that the leaks are exposing connections between his administration and the Russians. Also, did you happen to notice that, when explaining how the two things were different, he said these hacks against him are worse, as Clinton’s emails weren’t classified? How fucking hilarious is that? After spending a year attacking Clinton for her emailing of classified documents, he now says there wasn’t anything sensitive in them.]

So Trump, after months of attacking the intelligence community, has now essentially declared war on them, saying that he’ll ferret out the multiple leakers who have apparently decided to share what they know with the press in hopes of stopping the administration before they’re able to do irreparable damage to the nation. [For those of you who haven’t been following along, several members of the intelligence community, it would appear, went to the press and told them that Trump Nation Security Advisor Michael Flynn had engaged in illegal communications with Russia, once it became clear that Trump wouldn’t take action against Flynn on his own. And, since then, they’ve made it clear that they intend to continue releasing information about communications between Trump administration officials and the Kremlin during the election.]

According to John Schindler, a former NSA analyst who is now a national security columnist for the Observer, this aggressive turn against Trump by members of the intelligence community started in earnest this past week. In an article for the Observer titled “The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins,” Schindler said that issue had become so bad that our intelligence community had not only started releasing information about the Trump administration’s ties to Russia, but was starting to withhold intelligence from the White House, for fear that it might be handed over to the Kremlin.

Trump, when asked about ties between his administration and Putin’s government today, said only that it was “fake news” and a “ruse” perpetuated by the “dishonest media” and the Democrats… something that he’d been saying on Twitter since news became public that his National Security Advisor had lied to the FBI and others about the content of his communications with the Russians.

As for how Trump intends to ferret out the leakers, it would appear, according to the New York Times, that he may be getting ready to give Stephen A. Feinberg, a co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, the task of identifying those in the intelligence community who may be disloyal to the administration. [Cerberus Capital Management owns something called the Freedom Group, which is the largest manufacturer of firearms and ammunition in the United States. He’s also connected in some way, we’re told, to both Save Bannon and Jared Kushner.] Schindler, for what it’s worth, doesn’t seem too worried.

Not only does Schindler think that the intelligence community will come out on top when all is said and done, but, according to him, some within the intelligence community believe that, by the end of this, Trump will be behind bars.

I know Trump said earlier that his administration is running “like a fine-tuned machine,” but I think Schindler is likely right. If the administration is going up against the intelligence community, they’re going to lose… And not even the Russian mob can help them.

update: If you missed the press conference, here are some of the more bewildering highlights from Morning Joe.

update: Shortly after Trump’s press conference, it was reported that his pick to replace Mike Flynn, Retired Vice Admiral Bob Harward, backed out. A friend of Harward’s said the retired Admiral saw the prospect of joining the Trump administration as a “shit sandwich.”… “Running like a fine-tuned machine” indeed.