Donald Trump's first presidential news conference Thursday was ... something else. He ranted, he raved; he denied he was ranting and raving, which is even more bizarre than actually ranting and raving. He bragged again about his (unimpressive, fluke) 306 electoral votes. He repeatedly brought up, unsolicited, his election opponent and repeated his campaign points against her, something essentially unheard of among post-election, let alone sworn-into-office, presidents. (They might, as Trump did, dwell on problems they inherited, but personal campaign attacks are normally immediately forgotten the second the networks call the election). He got major and minor factual things totally wrong.

Then there was the bit about how a "nuclear holocaust would be like no other." And the bit in which he awkwardly (to say the least) asked a black reporter to set up a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus for him.

He gave incredibly convoluted answers about press leaks, news stories, and his firing of Michael Flynn as national security adviser — apparently we are to believe that the leaks were accurate, the news stories about them were not (something about the tone of reporters), and Flynn had to go because he didn't give an accurate answer to Vice President Michael Pence about something that didn't matter because Flynn didn't do anything wrong anyway. No, none of that makes sense.