What did Donald Trump do today?

He said he'd use his authority as president to punish anyone who made fun of him.

Trump was asked today on Air Force One about his administration's involvement in ABC suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He responded:

When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that's all they do, if you go back I guess they haven't had a conservative one [sic] in years or something, when you go back and take a look all they do is hit Trump. They're licensed. They're not allowed to do that. They're an arm of the Democrat [sic] party.

In the United States of America, because of the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment, anyone is "allowed to do that" without fear of being punished by the government.

Comedians are allowed to "hit Trump" with jokes and not face reprisals from the government, and there are no exceptions to that. Broadcast networks are allowed to air comedians who do without jeopardizing their license. 

Of course, just because Trump can't legally seek revenge because someone made fun of him doesn't mean he can't illegally abuse his power to accomplish the same thing. In a nutshell, that's what happened here: Disney (which owns ABC) and two broadcast groups that carry ABC programming were afraid that Trump would simply corruptly use the powers of his office to hurt them, even if it meant breaking or ignoring the law.

It's not clear when or if Kimmel's show will return to the air. 

Trump did other things today too, all of which it is Constitutionally protected to make fun of:

• He couldn't manage to pronounce the word "Azerbaijan," and then forgot which country (Armenia) it was in conflict with, while lying about brokering a peace deal between the two. 

• He lied about not knowing the now-former British Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, although there is plenty of evidence they know each other quite well. It's a sensitive topic for Trump because Mandelson—like Trump—was fired for writing Jeffrey Epstein an embarrassingly sympathetic letter after Epstein's conviction of sexual crimes against children.   

• He said that the UK would invest $17 trillion in the United States this year. The entire annual GDP of the United Kingdom is $3.6 trillion.

• He announced—apparently without meaning to—a plan to recapture Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, which would either mean re-invading the country or normalizing relations with the Taliban. (Trump is the one who ordered the withdrawal from Afghanistan, including Bagram, in the first place.)

• He went out in public looking like this:

Again, the United States government cannot legally punish anyone, in any way, for making fun of Trump about these things or anything else. It can only do so illegally.

Why does this matter?

• Humor makes dictators look weak and stupid, which is why they always try to shut it down first. 

• Trump may not care about Americans' freedom to criticize their leaders, but Americans do. 

• This is the reaction of a sulking toddler.