“I thought it was funny,” one White House official said. “Glad [Dan] Scavino and the president did that.”

Scavino is Trump’s White House director of social media, and his taunts and attacks on Twitter have sometimes directly foreshadowed some of @realDonaldTrump’s own tweeted salvos.

“The president fights back,” another senior Trump aide added. “It’s rich that some of you people [in the media] can never take a joke.”

“Pure Trump,” another official tersely messaged.