Trump has a particular animus towards the late-night hosts/comedians Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert for their relentless mocking of him to the point that he sicced Brendan Carr, of the FCC, on their parent companies to threaten to pull their broadcast licences.  In both cases, the cable networks capitulated only for them to have to rehire them until the end of their contracts.  He also routinely complains that they are not funny people and have low ratings. 

Well, have I got news for you.  Apart from their direct audiences on cable TV, Kimmel has around 22m YouTube subscribers and Colbert around 11m.  Not quite chump change Mr Trump.

So why the animus?  Apart from the degrading mockery, I think that Trump loves an audience ever since his TV show, The Apprentice, aired and he is a showman at heart.  In all his political rallies he loves to riff.  Unfortunately, all his riffing is impromptu and normally has nothing whatsoever to do with political campaigning apart from showing what a mensch he thinks he is.  There are the ridiculous ‘dear sir’ stories or anything that catches his magpie eye at the moment such as the size of Nicki Minaj’s arse complete with his busy little mitts graphically describing it.  (As an aside, I must say that it is large enough to have its own post code.)  He wistfully remembers his younger days and silently wishes that he could have a menage a trois with her – himself and an arse cheek in each hand.  It doesn’t matter how cringeworthy his stories are, he thinks he’s the greatest.

And there you have it.  He loves being in the limelight.  He dearly wants to be a polished raconteur like Kimmel and Colbert but deep down he knows he can never be and is upstaged by them every night.  If they were countries, he would bomb them.

Trump transformed from the failed raconteur to his new raccoonteur look after the snotklap* he received on election day.  One black eye for the House, and one for the Senate.

*  Snotklap (Afrikaans) literally translates to mucus slap where you are slapped so hard that the mucus flies out of your nose – a very effective way of shutting someone without causing lasting damage.