I think he knows what he's doing -- I know, I know, but indulge me for a second: He knows the press and its cycles inside out at this point, and he knows that all he has to do is say something controversial and suddenly the whole media circus will descend on him and his statements and camp out until people start losing attention -- which is vital, because he cannot afford to allow Hillary Clinton to receive any good press, which is what was happening this morning up until his press conference.

So here's what happened: Hillary has had a pretty excellent last couple of nights, the only thing anyone was talking about this morning was her husband's gorgeous, humanizing speech about her. Hashtags like #changemaker were starting to form,the press was beginning to discuss Hillary as a human being (even a lovable one!) instead of the caricature she's been painted as by the Republican Party. Trump made all that come to a screeching halt to his statements because, at some intrinsic level, he understands this:

Whenever the press goes negative on Hillary, she loses. For some reason (sexism, IMO, but you pick whatever you want) the more negative things (true or otherwise) people say about her the less likely people are to vote for her. He understands that in order to win the election, he has to keep the conversation on Hillary Clinton negative and squash any attempt at changing it or spinning it for the positive, which is what the DNC was largely succeeding at last night.

He also understands that the opposite is true for him: the more bad press he gets, the bigger he becomes. Because for whatever stupid fucking reason, his supporters enjoy seeing him play the bad boy. So the best thing he can do, given how well the DNC is going, is to say something incredibly stupid so that he himself becomes the object of bad press (which has no negative effect on his support numbers) and effectively remove Hillary (and her current good press, which could have an effect on his support numbers) out of the conversation entirely.

I'd like to believe it's not true, I'd like to believe that these terrible, borderline treacherous remarks will somehow be different, but I've been disappointed on that front from the very day he called the largest minority demographic in this country rapists. Hopefully today will prove me wrong. Because if not I really can't see a scenario where we're not all suddenly fucked.