Tense CNN showdown with Trump staffer leaves supporters of both sides feeling like they won

2018 is already off to a surreal, hot fire start thanks, in part, to a lot of fire and fury over Michael Wolff's new book on the first year of the Trump administration and the debate over what's true and what's not.

Enter CNN's Jake Tapper, one of the mainstream media's most consistent truth-tellers, and Trump staffer Stephen Miller, one of the administration's most steadfast figures and a man who will fight you over that poem on the Statue of Liberty.

The pair clashed on Tapper's State of The Union show on Sunday morning, sparring about Wolff's book and Trump's recent boast of being a "stable genius" on Twitter... and things went how you might expect if you're familiar with these two men (complete interview here).

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Things got even more fiery with Miller going after Tapper and CNN about "fake news" while Tapper wanted to talk about Trump's stability. Miller was in full denial, using the phrase "magical" to describe what's happening in America right now before going after Tapper like he went after CNN's Jim Acosta last year.

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That's when Tapper decided he'd had enough, cutting Miller off -- "I think I've wasted enough of my viewers' time" and ending the segment which, in essence, felt to some like Tapper booted Miller of the show.

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But it's all about perspective and while those who dislike Miller claimed that Tapper emerged victorious, there were those who thought Miller was the winner, wiping the floor with Tapper. And it started with the guy in the Oval Office.

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The rest of Twitter was split along the lines of political affiliation in something of a microcosm of the last several years of America, circling the proverbial drain while each side claimed some sort of "victory."

Twitter, basically, looked like this.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

More, if you can stomach it.

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But there's no victory to claim here, not that either Miller or Tapper have. Rather, it's the divided groups that continue to make everything a "win" or a "loss," like every interview, every debate is another battle in an ongoing war in which one side must be proven "right." And yet, there is still no winner.

Tapper's palpable exasperation is understandable and the split reaction on Twitter only furthers that feeling: there's no room for nuance, for discussion anymore. Everything devolves into screaming matches on social media, a deafening echo chamber that spirals further and further into dark places while nothing gets solved.

Fire and fury, indeed.