Donald Trump, equal parts George Steinbrenner and George Wallace, has made it clear that there will be riots if he doesn’t get the GOP nomination. There will likely be riots even if he does. There’ll be riots.

The cancerous candidate sat for an interview with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of the Washington Post, and while it doesn’t make Trump answer for his racist and xenophobic comments and peculiar policy positions, it is fascinating as a psychological portrait of a delusional megalomaniac who doesn’t even understand his own motivations. His extremely logorrheic explanation of why he entered politics isn’t exactly analogous to Ted Kennedy’s famous waterloo when he was unable to express why he wanted to be President during his 1979 joust with Jimmy Carter, but I think it does confirm suspicions that Trump impetuously entered the race because he’s an unhappy man whose need for attention can’t be sated. Thanks to a perfect storm of GOP craziness, he wound up the clear frontrunner, even if his path to delegate majority is increasingly difficult to find.

If it succeeds as a personality profile, the interview fails on other grounds. One passage that’s somehow making news is a Trump prediction the Post reporters were remiss in not effectively addressing. It’s this:

“I’m talking about a bubble where you go into a very massive recession. Hopefully not worse than that, but a very massive recession.”•

If it sounds familiar, that’s because Trump periodically releases such sky-is-falling mouthfarts which almost always turn out to be wrong. Here’s another one from 2012:

Billionaire Donald Trump says the U.S. economy is poised for “massive inflation” and is warning investors to take steps now to protect themselves.•

Bob Woodward: 

And the real first question is, where do you start the movie of your decision to run for president? Because that is a big deal. A lot of internal/external stuff, and we’d love to hear your monologue on how you did it.  

Donald Trump: 

Where do you start the movie? I think it’s actually — and very interesting question — but I think the start was standing on top of the escalator at Trump Tower on June 16, which is the day — Bob, you were there, and you know what I mean, because there has. . . . I mean, it looked like the Academy Awards. I talk about it. There were so many cameras. So many — it was packed. The atrium of Trump Tower, which is a very big place, was packed. It literally looked like the Academy Awards. And . . .  .

Bob Woodward: 

But we want to go before that moment.

Donald Trump:   

Before that? Okay, because that was really . . .  .

Bob Woodward: 

Because, other words, there’s an internal Donald with Donald.

Robert Costa:

Maybe late 2014 or before you started hiring people?

Donald Trump: 

Well, but that was — okay, but I will tell you, until the very end. . . . You know, I have a good life. I built a great company. It’s been amazingly — I’m sure you looked at the numbers. I have very little debt, tremendous assets. And great cash flows. I have a wonderful family. Ivanka just had a baby. Doing this is not the easiest thing in the world to do. People have — many of my friends, very successful people, have said, “Why would you do this?”

Bob Woodward: 

So is there a linchpin moment, Mr. Trump, where it went from maybe to yes, I’m going to do this? And when was that?

Donald Trump:

Yeah. I would really say it was at the beginning of last year, like in January of last year. And there were a couple of times. One was, I was doing a lot of deals. I was looking at very seriously one time, not — they say, oh, he looked at it for many — I really, no. I made a speech at the end of the ’80s in New Hampshire, but it was really a speech that was, it was not a political speech. But because it happened to be in New Hampshire . . .  .

Bob Woodward: 

And that guy was trying to draft you.

Donald Trump: 

And he was a very nice guy. But he asked me. And he was so intent, and I made a speech. It was not a political speech, anyway, and I forgot about it.

Bob Woodward: 

And that was the real possibility? Or the first . . .  .

Donald Trump: 

Well no, the real possibility was the Romney time, or the Romney term. This last one four years ago. I looked at that, really. I never looked at it seriously then. I was building my business, I was doing well. And I went up to New Hampshire, made a speech. And because it was in New Hampshire, it was sort of like, Trump is going to run. And since then people have said, Trump is going to run. I never was interested. I could almost say at all, gave it very little thought, other than the last time, where Romney was running.•