U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel was presiding over the Trump University lawsuit. Donald Trump declared the judge was biased against him because he was a Mexican. A blitzkrieg of protests ensued.
Before a rally in San Diego, dismayed Trump advisers pleaded with him not to raise the issue. Mr. Trump took the stage and tore into the judge.
Afterward aides greeted him with baffled looks. "Screw it" he told them. "I feel better, and I'm glad I did it."
Two pitchmen for the President, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, recount the story in their laudatory book, Let Trump be Trump. It's replete with examples of his defiance, of his unwillingness to change, no matter the decibel range of the dissenters.
That was while campaigning. With time in the office, people thought Mr. Trump would tame his bloviating excesses, learn the ropes, drop the ugly American act, treat the people and the office with respect.
They were dreaming. Donald Trump hasn't changed. Never has. Never will. And it is why his presidency is likely doomed.
More examples of his ruinous recalcitrance came this month. The Republican establishment warned him against supporting Roy Moore in the Alabama senatorial election. He ignored them and paid the price.
Since day one he's been cautioned against issuing insulting, unpresidential tweets. This week he tweeted a contemptuous putdown of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on the harassment issue, prompting widespread condemnation.
He has long been pilloried for a reckless disregard for the truth. His own trade office says the U.S. has a trade surplus with Canada. No matter. Mr. Trump yet again this month came out with a claim there is a trade deficit with Canada.
The book's authors say that Mr. Trump won the presidency because voters were "begging for something different." True enough. And he's given it to them in spades. And now that they have it, they can't stand it. Or him.
The latest indicator was Tuesday's Democrat victory in Republican-owned Alabama. It wasn't the historic shocker that many are saying. Not given the wretched Republican candidate. As soon as revelations of Mr. Moore's alleged preying on teen girls appeared, he was a dead man walking.
But the election was further evidence of a gathering trend. There was the pounding the Trump party took in off-year elections last month. There are the approval polls that are unprecedentedly awful for a first-year president. There is a widespread sense even among conservatives – George F. Will ranks him the worst President ever – that this ship of state is Titanically bound.
It is not because of policy. On policy, Mr. Trump has done much that conservatives can applaud. On court appointments, on law enforcement, on shredding the Environmental Protection Agency, on deregulation, on education. As well, on a foreign policy, which includes recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and on an economy where unemployment is at a 17-year low and a sweeping tax cut is in the offing.
But it does him no good. Americans' animosity to Mr. Trump is grounded in his character, his venom, his vindictiveness, the race-baiting, the serial fabrications. His electoral support divided into two groups. Hard-right, low educated, white nationalists who remain on his side and more middle-of-the-road types who saw Mr. Trump as a radical risk but said let's give him chance. They have and they have had enough already. They are disgusted and gone and not about to return barring a remarkable makeover.
"People hate politicians," write the book's authors. "Donald fashions himself as a killer of political correctness." It's a worthy cause. But you don't achieve it by dragging down politics to depths unseen. The people wanted a breath of fresh air, not a bottom-feeder, not a Beelzebub.
Early in his presidency, he told the writers, "I'm doing a great job. But my staff sucks." It was typical Trump. Humility is required for change. He possesses not a shred of it.
Lawrence Martin