Nathalie — who's doing a great job* with Morning News — included a short clip from Don Lemon's show on CNN last night. Here's a bit more. You gotta love that moment when Lemon, addressing Trump supporters who accuse those who point out Trump's racism of being The Real Racists (sigh), says, "You know what you could go do?" Lemon takes a nice, long pause, staring right into the camera. He looks like he's about to say, "You can can go fuck yourselves." Not only does it look like Lemon's about to say that, that is the logical and obvious thing to say. But he wouldn't say that, of course, because you can't say that on cable television — especially not to cuddled, deluded, malignant Trump supporters. I mean, a cable news anchor can't even be caught looking like he might be thinking that. So "go fuck yourselves" can't be what Lemon was thinking. And it can't be what Lemon wanted us to think he wanted to say. Spoiler: Lemon let's us know that "go fuck yourselves" is exactly what he wanted us to think because that was exactly what he wanted to say. But he can't say that, of course, so he went with, "You could go read a book," instead.

I propose that "You can go read a book" be adopted as the lefty/blue-state equivalent of "Well, bless your heart."

Anyway, last night officials in the Trump administration were saying his "shithole" remark would play well with his base and would, in the end, be a net gain for the president. This morning Trump's brain trust — The Three Stooges — criticized Trump for calling Haiti and Africa "shithole countries." (Africa, as Sarah Palin learned a few years back, is a continent, not a country.) Trump promptly jumped on Twitter to deny ever having said "shithole countries," which prompted one Democratic senator who was in the room — Dick Durban of Illinois — to confirm that, yes, the president fucking said just that.

And, hey, some Republicans have "qualms" with the president's remarks — some, not all — and are willing to on the record about it. Because as "Mitt Romney" pointed out during the primaries...

"We in the GOP, the party of the great Ronald Reagan, we do not say racist and sexist things. We imply them. Subtly. Over decades and decades of policy."

Republicans don't have a problem doing racist things but — heavens — don't say racist things out loud. Another norm the president nuked.

* Although I'm sure everyone misses "Armpit of the Day" on Tuesdays and maybe Nathalie will bring back AOTD if we all implore her. In the meantime, Slog, here's an armpit to tide us all over until Nathalie comes around — and it's not just any ol' armpit, but Reed Kelly's amazing Cirque-du-Soleil-pit doing amazing Cirque-du-Soleily things. I threw out my shoulder just watching.