Having finally reduced American political discourse to an elaborate game of “Psych! Made ya flinch,” Donald Trump announced on Twitter today that he does not, in fact, have tapes of his conversations with former FBI director James Comey. Of course, people only started speculating about the existence of said tapes because Trump hypothetically willed them into existence earlier this year, idly musing—as our current president is apparently wont to do—about how bad it would be for Comey if such recordings were hanging around.
Given that reactions to Trump’s bout of presidential Let’s Pretend ranged from, “You’re a child,” to, “If those exist, you’re legally obligated to turn them over,” it’s probably a good thing for everybody that the leader of the free world was just funnin’ about recording his private conversations with a top law-enforcement official. Not that the president ever actually threatened Comey, mind you; he was just speculating, what with “the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information,” that such tapes might exist, somewhere in the grand, cosmic span of the universe. Who can say? Not a humble, imaginative president, with one hand on the ”nuke” button, the other on his Twitter app, and a head full of big, fanciful ideas.