Douglas Brinkley compares Trump to 'Crime and Punishment': He behaves like a guilty man trying to get away with it

President Donald Trump has an incessant need to dig himself into deeper and deeper holes, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley told Don Lemon Thursday.

Reading a Politico report about Trump making his Comey problem worse, Lemon read that Trump's staff didn't want him to do today's interview with NBC's Lester Holt. Trump had been so fixated on the news he felt he needed to take matters into his own hands. It obviously doesn't end well as evidenced by the Politico headline.

"Donald Trump's obsessive about watching cable TV," Brinkley said. "All he does is quarterback it, TiVo it and it's caused him nothing but trouble. But he can't help himself. But in a way, he's like a character in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. Only Donald Trump knows where the guilt is on all of this. But the hound dogs are after him and in his mind, that's the media. So, he tries to obfuscate, destroy, lie, whatever he can to get people off his scent, including firing the head of the FBI."

He went on to say that Trump seems to get worried and then acts impulsively.

"Donald Trump's worried about what does, I think, Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn know, and will Flynn do an immunity agreement, or plead guilty to a small misdemeanor," Brinkley said. "But will he talk, will he say 'I got marching orders from Donald Trump to deal with Assage. You have to imagine living in Donald Trump's skin, every day now he is in fear that the bottom may drop out on him. He behaves like a guilty man trying to get away with a crime. And the press for him is the enemy because they are the ones that are relentless."

Watch below the fascinating conversation with the presidential historians who put this scandal in context of others:

Douglas Brinkley compares Trump to 'Crime and...by sarahburris