President Trump is sabotaging himself by attacking the media after Charlottesville

What would possess the president of the United States, after he finally called out white supremacists, to return a day later to the flimsy position that attracted so much criticism in the first place? Part of the answer is that he hates the media and just can't stand to give reporters what they want — or admit that he was wrong.

Take it from someone who knows President Trump pretty well. “I think there's — it's almost like a counterintuitive thing with him, as it relates to the media,” former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci told Stephen Colbert on “Late Show.” “The media's expecting him to do something; he sometimes does the exact opposite.” Scaramucci shared his insight before President Trump doubled down on remarks he delivered over the weekend, when white supremacists protesting the removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville clashed with counterprotesters. Though it was a Nazi sympathizer who drove a car into a crowd, killing one and injuring 19 others, the president reiterated his position that “both sides” were to blame for the violence while speaking at an impromptu news conference at Trump Tower in New York. This was President Trump, furious at the media, freelancing in self-destructive fashion.