Donald Trump "is a great publicity-seeker and at a time when the Republican party hasn't really figured out what it's for, as opposed to what it's against."

"I think that he is tapped into something that exists in the Republican party that's real. I think there is genuine anti-immigrant sentiment in the large portion of at least Republican primary voters. I don't think it's uniform. He knows how to get attention. He is, you know, the classic reality TV character and, at this early stage, it's not surprising that he's gotten a lot of attention.... I don't think he'll end up being president of the United States."

Said President Obama, talking to Steve Kroft on "60 Minutes" last night.

What's notable about that statement — compared to the various pundits who've tried to explain Trump's political success — is that he doesn't go straight for the one big amorphous emotion — anger — that Trump supposedly expresses for the people who are drawn to him. Obama makes it about one issue, immigration, but he frames that issue as an emotion, a "sentiment," focused on a particular type of person, the "immigrant."

But most of what Obama has to say is that Trump is an attention-getter, and he thinks, I think, that the man not only shouldn't be President of the United States, he shouldn't be getting the attention of the President of the United States.