What did Donald Trump do today?

He attended the G7, briefly, in his usual way.

The G7 is an annual summit meeting of seven industrialized nations—the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom—plus the European Union. It is being hosted by Canada this year, and Trump was in attendance, although he made an abrupt and unscheduled end to the visit before it was over.

The G7 is emotionally fraught territory for Trump. Its leaders are from the nations most able and willing to push back against him, and he has not handled having to listen to criticism—even of the diplomatic variety to his face. 

In fact, today's sudden departure (ostensibly to monitor the unfolding Iran catastrophe) was at least the third time he has stormed out of the G7 early. In 2019, he rage-quit the London meeting after video leaked of other leaders in attendance poking fun at Trump's habit of chasing the spotlight. As this site put it at the time:

It's not news to anyone else that world leaders think Trump is dangerous, mentally ill, ridiculous, or easily manipulated—because they've said so. But Trump himself, whose staff works very hard to keep him from seeing news that will upset him, may actually have been caught by surprise.

And in 2018, he left the Montreal meeting early and angrily withdrew the United States from a generic statement of goodwill between the participants because Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had refused to submit to his demands in his first-term trade war.

In every G7 meeting Trump has attended, he's complained loudly and bitterly that Russia is no longer a member of the group. Here was today's version:

You know, they, they don't talk — Putin speaks to me, he doesn't speak to anybody else, he doesn't want to talk — 'cause he was very insulted when he got thrown out of the G8. As, uh, I would be, as you would be, as anybody would be, he's very insulted. And, uh, when he was thrown out, by Trudeau, who convinced one or two people along with Obama, he was thrown out, and he's, uh, not a happy person about it, I can tell you that. Basically, he basically doesn't even speak to the people who threw him out. And I agree with him.

In reality, the Putin regime was uninvited in 2014 by every other G7 nation because of its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea. The Canadian Prime Minister at the time was Stephen Harper, a member of the Conservative Party. Justin Trudeau, of the Liberal Party, did not take office for another 19 months after that. 

The G7 is, by definition, a meeting of allies, and only Trump—who sees politics in personal transactional terms and has profited both financially and politically from Russia's assistance—considers Putin an ally.

A few minutes later, as Trump was warming to the theme of his intention to send more federal troops and immigration raids into the American cities that are "the core of the Democrat Power Center," Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney jumped in front of him and called an abrupt, if polite, halt to the press availability.

Shortly after that, Trump abruptly left the meeting a day early. But it wasn't all bad feelings: Trump also announced that he was willing to make concessions to the UK in his ongoing attempt to win a trade war against the entire world because "I like them. That’s why. That’s the ultimate protection."

UPDATE: Later in the evening, Trump insisted that French President Emmanuel Macron was wrong about why he left the meeting early, even though Macron was giving the same (relatively flattering) explanation Trump's own White House did. 

Trump did not offer any alternative explanation, so if there was a reason other than managing his own emotional needs, then Macron is not alone in having "no idea."

Why does this matter?

• Presidents who are too emotionally fragile to sit through a whole day of meetings with people who don't have to kiss their ass should probably find another line of work. 

• It's a problem that one of the only issues Trump seems to be able to consistently focus on is how to help Russia. 

• Trump trying to sound like a mob boss running a protection racket is all the more embarrassing given his history with actual mob bosses.