“Kamala and her ‘handlers’ are trying to make it sound like I am the Incumbent President, so that they can blame me for the failure of the past four years. No, it was their failure! It is one of the worst Presidencies in History, and she is definitely the Worst Vice President,” posted convicted felon former President Trump at 1:15 AM on Saturday, plainly bothered by Harris “defining” him.

Trump certainly did not read it, but about 12 hours earlier Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall absolutely nailed it when he wrote that Trump himself “laid the groundwork” for Harris to do exactly that, turning “his own political heft against him. The centerpiece of Trump’s post-presidency is the wicked conceit that he never stopped being president at all. At the most basic level he never admitted that he lost the 2020 campaign. His most ardent supporters believe he is the legitimate president and some of the most febrile actually believe in a funhouse mirror, QAnony way that he still holds secret reins of power. But much of it is more immediate and open. He still calls himself president. He demands and universally receives that billing from his followers.”

“He moves through the country with the trappings and insignia of the presidency. He continues to meet with foreign heads of state, not as an elder statesman but as though he never left office. He even argues that national secrets and presidential documents are his personal property. This has been an open, weird and much-discussed feature of Trump’s post-presidency since the first weeks after leaving office. If Trump and his toadies are now complaining that Harris is treating him like the incumbent it is because in ways vast and small he has acted like one and demanded to be treated like one for almost four years. She’s taken his most perverse and vainglorious conceit and turned it into a massive liability,” Marshall continued, perfectly laying out how Trump made this bed.