I would not necessarily believe that he was being serious here. He likes the attention when he shoots off his mouth.

ANY attention is better than NONE.

And I agree that our participation in the Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire is to be avoided!

Putin has demonstrated over the decades that while he does not shoot off his mouth about it, his minions do not hesitate to shoot off their guns when he wants a pesky voice silenced. If someone in Washington gets too close with their reporting, I doubt he will ask Trump's permission before removing the irritation. He has done it in London, and it takes less time to fly from London to Washington than it takes to fly from Moscow to Vladivostok.

Gone are the days of "Smyert' Shpionam (death to spies)." Now it's "Smyert' Journalistam (death to journalists)," and Prince Vladimir practices it with great frequency and deadly accuracy. If he finds some writer for the Washington Post or the New York Times getting too close for comfort, I have no doubt he will NOT restrain himself (or his killers) for fear of harming the territorial integrity of the United States.

To calling the media the enemy of the people, and now he's graduated to death threats. Does this look like an escalating threat level to anyone else, or do we just have to sit tight until Trump finds a gun suited to his teeny, tiny fingers and starts squirting lead?

He'd ask Putin to have a member of the RF embassy with diplomatic immunity to do it (assuming Putin hasn't already put it in the works), and then let Trump call out the Thoughts and Prayers Squad to mop up the spilled milk.