MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reveals the most hilarious part about Trump's failed 'declassification gambit'

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow pointed out Friday evening that there's a hilarious reason why President Donald Trump "blinked" on his demand that the Justice Department declassify documents related to the Russia investigation so they could be publicized.

At the beginning of the week, Trump ordered the declassification of 20 pages of Russia documents after some of his allies suggested he do so. Maddow noted that he later revealed he hadn't read the documents.

As the week wore on, warnings were raised about DOJ officials potentially being forced to resign when the declassification took place due to their commitment to protecting their sources — a side-effect that Maddow and others noted may have been the intended effect of the demand.

On Friday morning, the president announced that he'd reversed the decision after meeting with the DOJ and was instead referring it to the department's inspector general.

The host also pointed out that according to the Los Angeles Times' reporting on the reversal, Trump came to his decision after speaking with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Maddow suggested that, given bombshell reports that Rosenstein floated invoking the 25th Amendment against Trump, it would be ironic if the whole point of the "declassification gambit" was "to force a confrontation with Rod Rosenstein" resulting in his dismissal.

"The president appears to have blinked when it came to that confrontation," the host said. "Rosenstein apparently told him no, you can't let this stuff out."

"I think the script they thought he was going to follow at Fox News was he would then stand up and say 'well, you're fired,'" she continued. Instead, "the president said, 'okay, then I'll withdraw my request.'"

Watch below, via MSNBC: