At the end of yesterday’s press conference, his first in six months, Donald Trump pointed a single stubby digit through the pit full of waiting journalists, through the lenses of the news cameras, through your TV screen and out into the world, pointing with a billion reproduced fingers at the sprawling slough of reality in general. And then he said: “You’re fired.”

Usually, the significance of a press conference depends on what the person behind the podium actually says when questioned. The press themselves try to be as invisible as possible, a neutral conduit between the politician and their public. This time it was different.

Trump answered questions on Russia, gave convoluted excuses for concerns over his conflicts of interest, talked about the border wall and the Supreme Court vacancy. But what was really important was his relation to the media itself, and to its usual role as the appointed arbiters of reality.