Brooding Trump hunkers down with Fox News as his former campaign boss turns himself in

Back from a weekend of golfing and facing news that his former campaign chairman has turned himself into prosecutors, Donald Trump remains hunkered down inside the White House, glued to Fox News, and raging about Hillary Clinton.

Locked inside a right-wing information bubble where Clinton is somehow president and the Republican Congress scrambles to derail her imaginary agenda through a flurry of investigations, Trump continues to wrap himself in the fantasy that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is going to eventually evaporate, and that the larger Russia investigation remains a “hoax.”

Trump remains utterly transfixed by news that the Clinton campaign paid for opposition research during the 2016 campaign, via the Washington, D.C. firm Fusion GPS, and that that somehow represents a scandalous revelation of illegality.

Report out that Obama Campaign paid $972,000 to Fusion GPS. The firm also got $12,400,000 (really?) from DNC. Nobody knows who OK'd!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2017

Trump on Monday morning was even cheering “Fox & Friends” guests by name.

Great job by MichaelCaputo on @foxandfriends.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2017

Regardless of his rants about Clinton and the DNC, Trump’s presidency now openly revolves around a criminal prosecution, with the very real possibility that more will follow. The fact that Trump’s presidency is already being overshadowed by a looming court cases just nine months into his first year in office represents a new low in American politics.

And through it all, Trump remains glued to Fox as he and the channel’s anchors and pundits talk back and forth to each other, most often in a dialogue devoid of reality.

Note that Trump’s dark week unfolds as his approval rating hits new lows in two seperate polls. Ironically, a survey from Trump’s beloved Fox News recently found his approval tumbling down 38 percent. Traditionally, Fox News polls have been generous to Trump, showing him with an approval rating somewhat higher than other surveys.

But no more.

And over the weekend, an NBC/WSJ poll showed that Trump’s approval had plummeted five points since September, down to 38 percent, “his lowest rating since taking office,” according to that particular poll.

For Trump, the bottom continues to fall out among independent voters, “whose approval declined from 41 percent last month to 34 percent now.” So no, The Trump, Fox News obsession with Clinton doesn’t seem to be working, politically.

Context: Eight years ago at this time, President Barack Obama’s approval rating stood at 51 percent, according to the NBC/WSJ pollsters.

Those are numbers Trump will likely never see.