Put him 'in his place?'

Mark Halperin (on MSNBC's Morning Joe): "Trump is right in the president’s face, sometimes over the line rhetorically, but he’s giving people the impression, ‘I’m tough. I’m not afraid of Barack Obama. I will put him in his place,’ and that has broad appeal.” You mean, like "cotton picking?" as Andrew Sullivan wryly noted. Halperin, a senior political analyst for Time magazine, is no racist. But his tone-deafness staggers the mind.