One of the more bizarre efforts by Republican lawmakers to explain why Donald Trump, appearing alongside Russian leader Vladimir Putin, dismissed U.S. law enforcement conclusions on Russian election tampering and appeared to embrace Putin's version of events (and, notably, Putin's own proposals to let Russia see the intelligence gathered in the investigation so they could, ya know, "help") came from South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds, who offered up the theory that maybe Trump was lying so flagrantly as an attempt to, um, be sarcastic?
“The president just looked right back at [Putin] and with the same straight face... basically sent a message: ’If you can sit here and tell me that with a straight face and that’s what it takes it to move forward in other negotiations, I most certainly can match you on this, and in fact I can stand here and say, ‘Of course you didn’t do it,’ even though we all know that [you did],’” Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday.
“The reality is,” Rounds continued, expounding on his theory of Trump as a fourth-dimensional chess master, “‘I know you did it, you know you did it, and you know that I know that you did it.’ So to me, Mr. Putin tried to tell the whopper with a straight face and President Trump basically laid out, ‘You wanna play that game? Fine. I can do the same thing because we all know you did.’”
So essentially what we have here is a case in which two of the world's most dishonest world leaders were simply attempting to one-up each other in a series of ever more implausible statements? Points for trying, Mr. Rounds.
Senator Rounds's attempted explanation came before Trump's own White House announcement that in reviewing the tape, he could only find a single word he wished in hindsight to change so everything is All Better Now. But it also preceded Trump's new and possibly worse lie, this morning, in which he point-blank denied that Russian hacking attempts were ongoing even today. The lunacy of that stumped every observer; it seems that reporters need to get back to Mike Rounds and ask him to tease out the meaning of this new transparent falsehood as well.
Any thoughts on this one, Mike? Donald Trump is telling the American press that the Putin government is no longer involved in attempts to sabotage U.S. elections despite widespread public assertions by top intelligence officials that they are. Is he trying to tell a new "whopper" just to show the American public he's so strong and manly he can lie whenever he wants to? Is it an elaborate attempt to trick Putin into thinking we don't know what we do know?
C'mon, Mike Rounds. Your services are needed here: Tell us what Donald Trump is thinking!