The Whole Big Mess: The President got up and threatened Russia this morning; he wants to fire the special counsel; the FBI was looking for records of Trump payoffs to women; his homeland security adviser was fired; the president of China cools it. Trump’s problems are so big that he could bomb Syria and a porn actress would still lead the news. Here goes.

Finger on the Button: President Trump was up early tweeting a threat to Russia as the world waits for his response to the Syrian chemical attack. He wrote, “Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart!’ You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!”

Trump is considering a much tougher attack on Syria than he ordered last year in response to a chemical weapons attack. Trump loosed a missile barrage on a Syrian air base a year ago, but it was back up and running again within days.

Some options this time around are hitting major government buildings, like the Syrian intelligence headquarters, and hitting multiple military facilities over several days. The point would be to show that the US is really serious about the use of chemical weapons, which Syria was supposed to have surrendered under pressure by the Obama administration.

Related to all this in some way, a day after Trump’s new hard-nosed National Security Adviser John Bolton went to work, he pushed out the homeland security adviser, Thomas Bossert.

The Firing Line: CNN reports that Trump is giving serious consideration to firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller and starting by firing Deputy Atty. General Rod Rosenstein. The NY Times reports that, despite denials, he came close to doing it last December.

Following FBI raids on his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, Trump is reported to be enraged with the special counsel. Firing him could be messy. According to generally accepted interpretations of the law, Trump can’t directly fire Mueller. He has to fire Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller, and replace him with someone who would agree to fire Mueller. Or, Trump could fire Atty. General Jeff Sessions, and have his replacement get rid of Mueller.

The White House claims that it wouldn’t be so difficult because they say the President does have the authority to fire Mueller. Either way, firing Mueller would set off a legal and political firestorm. Republican Sen. Chick Grassley said, “I think it would be suicide for the President to fire him.”

Firing Mueller would not end his investigations because indictments and guilty pleas are already in the works. The tree has grown deep roots.

Trump was up early defending himself on Twitter this morning. “I (we) are doing things that nobody thought possible, despite the never ending and corrupt Russia Investigation, which takes tremendous time and focus. No Collusion or Obstruction (other than I fight back), so now they do the Unthinkable, and RAID a lawyers office for information! BAD!”

Full Disclosure: When the FBI raided the hotel room and offices of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen they were looking for records of nondisclosure payoffs made to Stormy Daniels, the porn actress, and Karen McDougal, the former Playboy model, both of whom claim they had affairs with Trump.

Federal prosecutors would have had to meet a high standard of justification to merit interfering with attorney-client privilege, one of the sacred relationships in the law. Trump tweeted before dawn yesterday, “Attorney–client privilege is dead!”

The Social Network: The headline on Marketwatch says, “Zuckerberg deflects senators’ Facebook questions, and gets $3 billion for the effort.”

The Dow Jones rose by 428 points while Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wiggled and dodged five hours of questions from a Senate panel. It recalled the days when the executives of tobacco companies were hauled before Congress to explain their business. Zuckerberg did apologize for failing to fully control user data.

Some of the senators were pretty clueless about how social media works. Sen. Orrin Hatch, asked how Facebook makes money if it doesn’t charge its users.

Zuckerberg answered, “Senator, we run ads.”

The Facebook hearing was about users’ privacy in the wake of some major data harvesting and whether Congress should consider passing regulations. Zuckerberg said he’s not opposed to regulations if they are the right kind. But the trouble is that user information is the product Facebook offers — to the advertisers Orrin Hatch knew nothing about.

Louisiana Sen John Kennedy said bluntly to Zuckerberg, “Here’s what everybody’s been trying to tell you today, and I say this gently: Your user agreement sucks. The purpose of Facebook’s user agreement is to protect Facebook’s rear end. It’s not to inform your users of their rights.”

Xi Cool: Chinese President Xi Jinping said yesterday he plans to “significantly” lower the 25 percent tariff on cars imported into China. The US has a 2.5 percent tariff on imported vehicles.

Xi’s announcement isn’t complete news — he’s suggested this before — but it could be an attempt to cool a potential trade war with the US.

Late Breaking: An Algerian military plane crashed today, killing all 257 people on board. The Russian-made Ilyushin had just taken off when it went down in a field. It’s too early to determine the cause. We’ll leave it at that with no wisecracks this morning.

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