Trump's Big Mistake

Never, ever make the CIA an enemy:

In an interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace which was broadcast on Sunday, Trump expanded on this incendiary statement, saying “nobody knows” whether it was Russian hackers who targeted Democrats and calling the suggestion that the Russians were trying to help him win “ridiculous.”

Just like that, Trump made an enemy of the intelligence community. Many intelligence professionals had already been suspicious of him—because of his disregard for facts, and because of his embrace of the retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the National Security Adviser designate, whom some people in Washington regard as a conspiracy theorist. But this latest episode was something far more direct and personal. Never before has a President or President-elect spoken so dismissively of the C.I.A.

In taking this tack, Trump also invited his political opponents to attack him where his Administration’s grip on power will be weakest: in the U.S. Senate, where the Republicans will have a majority of just two seats.