MADAME PRESIDENT:

As always, one's first reaction on seeing Trump lash out at someone is, "What the hell is he thinking?" The answer is: He's not thinking, he's feeling. Trump isn't a planner, he's a reactor, and nothing gets more of a reaction from him than criticism. But not all criticism -- only certain kinds. And when you look at what gets a rise out of him, you can see what he really cares about.

Right now, what Donald Trump really cares about is looking like a winner. It's why he has spent the last two months since the election insisting that his election was such an enormous landslide (after all, how many presidents can say they won despite getting almost three million fewer votes than their opponent?). The true threat of the Russian dossier isn't the idea that he's Vladimir Putin's puppet; as he said in one of his debates with Hillary Clinton, "No puppet. No puppet. You're the puppet." I'll bet he isn't even bothered by the most salacious allegations in the Trump dossier. What really rankles him is the idea that without Putin's help, he couldn't have won. That's also why he lashed out at Lewis, who said that he doesn't consider Trump a "legitimate president."

Another politician, understanding what a revered figure Lewis is, would have brushed it off. But Trump simply could not allow that accusation to hang out there without a harsh response, which is exactly what he delivered.

Trump is also irked to no end by data showing him to be the most unpopular incoming president since polling began. In The Washington Post's polling, Barack Obama's approval just before he was inaugurated was 79 percent, George W. Bush was at 62 percent, Bill Clinton was at 68 percent, and George H.W.Bush was at 65 percent. Trump is at 40 percent. As soon as he saw that, he tweeted, "The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before." Ah, the return of the "rigged" polls, when they show something other than stunning support for Trump (actually, the election polls were pretty accurate -- they showed Clinton winning the popular vote by about 3 points, and she won by 2).

This is something that bears watching: You can call Trump a sexist or a vulgarian and it won't bother him all that much. But call him a loser? That his fragile ego cannot tolerate.

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