At the annual county fair in my hometown, there was a roller coaster that went around in circles, first forward, and then backwards, as the ride operator shouted into a microphone, “Do you wanna go faster?” That’s a lot how the Trump-era news cycle feels. With the firing of the FBI’s Andrew McCabe and the weekend attacks on the Mueller investigation, we’ve reached the scorched-earth phase of the Trump presidency. If you think the news around this White House has been crazy so far, you better fasten your seatbelts and keep your hands and feet in, because we’re about to go a lot faster. As the NYT’s Maggie Haberman reports: The decision to go after Mueller and his team “was the decision of a president who ultimately trusts only his own instincts, and now believes he has settled into the job enough to rely on them rather than the people who advise him.” Newly Emboldened, Trump Says What He Really Feels. (Yes, that headline implies that, up until now, he’s been holding back…)

+ “If you wanted to tell the story of an entire Presidency in a single tweet, you could try the one that President Trump posted after Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Andrew McCabe … Every sentence is a lie. Every sentence violates norms established by Presidents of both parties. Every sentence displays the pettiness and the vindictiveness of a man unsuited to the job he holds.” The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin: Donald Trump and the Craven Firing of Andrew McCabe. And David Frum on why firing McCabe is just the start.

+ “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.” We’ve grown accustomed to reading statements like that in our Twitter stream. But not directed from former CIA directors towards a sitting president. For better or worse, the gloves are off. The wheels may soon follow.