Republicans in the Senate have been increasingly willing to confront Trump, despite him being the president of their own party. They have pushed forward a bill to tie his hands on Russia policy, questioned his legislative strategy and blasted him for suggesting that he would fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Some of the GOP senators who have worked to constrain Trump have argued that they are defending government norms from a president who either doesn’t understand those norms or doesn’t care to uphold them.

McConnell is usually not the person directly attacking the president, but he hasn’t done much to stop many of his 51 colleagues from doing so either. And McConnell has hinted, at times, that Trump doesn’t understand Washington or governing. McConnell’s comments on Monday — “Our new president, of course, has not been in this line of work before,” and “I think he [Trump] had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process.” — were interpreted as a dig at the president, and I’m not surprised that they annoyed Trump.