[Hoot Gibson]

For the good of the country and for the good of his party, Trump needs to break his Twitter addiction and start acting presidential. Personally picking public fights with people who should be his natural allies is idiotic.

John Roberts is the top official of a co-equal branch of government. Of course, Roberts should have responded to a very specific attack on one of the courts that fall under his jurisdiction. The only thing that I fault him for is not responding to similar attacks by Obama.

Trump has the sole power to nominate federal judges. He needs to privately pressure McConnell to get his nominees confirmed in a timely manner. Putting the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in a position where he feels obligated to publicly defend the legitimacy of the Judicial branch of the federal government is just plain stupid.

I agree with Trump's opinion about the 9th Circuit and I suspect that Roberts also agrees with Trump - but Trump's public, poorly worded attacks demand very public responses. I am sure that Trump would not be happy if the next radical left-wing president claims that future court rulings are illegitimate because they are made by Trump appointed judges.

I know that Trump's core supporters believe that liberals will overplay the hand that they were dealt when they flipped 39 (probably 40) House seats, and will behave stupidly for the next two years. No doubt that they will do just that, but if Trump continues making unforced error after unforced error, then whether liberals shoot themselves in both feet will not matter much.

Getting into a public feud with a generally conservative Chief Justice is an unforced error.