Pat McCrory is acting more and more like Donald Trump.

Like Trump, he’s thin-skinned and sensitive. Like Trump, he personally and viciously attacks anybody who disagrees with him. And like Trump, he can’t stop digging his hole deeper.

McCrory had his chief of staff call a late-night press conference to accuse a career state scientist of “lying under oath.”

That’s a serious charge. And the story demands serious attention.

It looks like McCrory’s political appointees pressured scientists to water down (so to speak) health warnings about drinking water near Duke Energy’s coal ash dumps. The scientists refused to buckle. So the political people just changed the warnings themselves.

This isn’t just politics. It directly affects the health and lives of hundreds of North Carolina citizens.

It’s clear why this would happen. McCrory already is hurting from his career with Duke and because he agrees with Duke that consumers should pay for the coal-ash cleanup.

So, just as with Hate Bill 2 and the NBA All-Star Game, and just like Trump, McCrory doubles and triples down.

Which raises once again the old adage: The worst wounds in politics are self-inflicted.

The Clinton and Cooper campaigns might heed another adage: When your opponent is busy shooting himself in the foot, stay out of the line of fire.