Why Trump Is Firing Off a Barrage of Threats

Updated at 4:13 p.m. ET on October 3, 2019.

Though his allies insist that Democrats have been looking for an excuse to impeach Donald Trump since the day he was elected, the president was caught flat-footed last week when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced an “official impeachment inquiry.”

The White House continues to scramble to put together a machine to fight impeachment, but slowly, from a series of enraged tweets and statements by Trump aides, a central message is starting to emerge: If you want to go after the president, we will make it very, very costly for you—and for the nation.

This threat applies to individuals, including the who filed a complaint about Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine, as well as to members of Congress, especially Representative Adam Schiff. And it also applies to the country as a whole, as Trump