“Choosing a single day that epitomizes Donald J. Trump's presidency — amid the endless tangle of jaw-dropping, reality-bending, norm-shattering days — is a fool's errand. But for a White House correspondent departing the beat after eight years, Thursday came awfully close.

”From Mr. Trump's morning Twitter rant (asking how anyone could vote for a Democrat over “what you have now, so great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius!”) to his social media summit (in which he praised a room of right-wing agitators for “the crap you think of”), to a news conference that ended with his merry band of provocateurs almost coming to blows with reporters, the White House finally surrendered itself to being a stage set for Mr. Trump's greatest reality show."

— Mark Landler saying goodbye to all that in his farewell New York Times column covering the White House (he's becoming London bureau chief). Read the whole thing. It's brutal. And sad. For our country.