Multiple sources familiar with President Trump’s mood told CNN he’s frustrated with how Nick Ayers declined his offer to be chief of staff.

One source described his mood as “super pissed.” A second added he feels humiliated, a position he doesn’t like to be in, because the President did not have a backup candidate prepared like he typically does when he’s fielding people for jobs.

One source said Ayers got the benefit of being seen as the next chief of staff “without any of the headaches.”

Greg Sargent comments on the Post‘s latest category of President Trump’s misleading statements: “The key point here is that Trump is not engaged in conventional lying. He’s engaged in spreading disinformation.”

From Sargent’s excellent book:

Trump isn’t trying to persuade anyone to believe his lies as much as he’s trying to render factual reality irrelevant — thus reducing the pursuit of agreement on it to just another part of the media circus in which he thrives…

There is a reason Trump regularly tells lies that are very easy to debunk: The whole point of them is to assert the power to say what the truth is, even when — or especially when — easily verifiable facts, ones that are right in front of our noses, dictate the contrary. The brazenness and shamelessness of his lying is not just a by-product of an effort to mislead voters that Trump is merely taking to new levels. Rather, the brazenness and shamelessness of the lying is central to his broader project of declaring for himself the power to say what reality is.

Jonathan Chait: “Reporters and commentators have begun saying Mueller’s probe is reaching its final stages. But given that Mueller’s operation is utterly airtight, this conclusion is almost certainly a matter of speculation, which has gained wide acceptance through repetition. Nobody actually knows if the probe is almost over.”

“There remains a vast chasm between what has been reported in the news media — hell, what has even transpired in plain sight — and what Mueller has been able to demonstrate in a court of law. We still don’t know how much of this chasm will ever be closed. It’s possible the trail of inquiry will stop at the refusal of people like Roger Stone and Paul Manafort to talk. But prosecuting even a single person, let alone a large conspiracy, can take a lot of time. It’s also possible there remains a long way to go. Trump’s lawyers were promising the inquiry would be over by Thanksgiving — of last year! Do we have any real reason to believe it won’t still be going by this time next year?”