President Donald Trump. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

On Twitter early Friday, President Trump suggested that he might end White House press briefings and threatened fired FBI Director James Comey with an allusion to “tapes” of their conversations.

As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

...Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future "press briefings" and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy??? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

Trump’s musing about press briefings comes in the wake of a Thursday interview in which he directly contradicted the White House’s initial story about why and how James Comey had been fired. “I was going to fire Comey,” Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt. “I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.” Just a day before, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, echoing the administration’s previous statements, had told reporters that Trump had not decided to fire Comey before Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s memo.

Trump’s allusion to tapes of conversations with Comey comes out of nowhere. It’s entirely unclear what the president is talking about here. A Nixonian recording setup? More alleged “tapps” from Obama cronies? The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman tweeted that foreign leaders have been nervous about the former possibility for some time.

This is what some world leaders have privately expressed concern abt,that nothing they discuss will be in confidence https://t.co/R9XXgAjrqB — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 12, 2017

What Trump actually means is anyone’s guess. But the president of the United States just casually threatened a private citizen—one he fired, by his own admission, over an investigation pertaining to him that he would like to see end.

Good morning.