It’s kind of like saying “the house is not on fire” while standing in front of the house as the flames consume it. Trump says it’s a hoax.

President Trump said Wednesday that reports of Russia paying bounties to Taliban-linked fighters to kill U.S. troops and coalition forces in Afghanistan is a hoax, even as his administration continues to brief members of Congress on the matter.

His administration is briefing members of Congress on the hoaxitude of the hoax. They need to be thorough about it.

“Do people still not understand that this is all a made up Fake News Media Hoax started to slander me & the Republican Party. I was never briefed because any info that they may have had did not rise to that level,” Trump said in an additional tweet.

Do Trump still not understand that nobody believe his lies?

Following the Democrats’ briefing, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters that while there may be “different judgments as to the level of credibility,” he doesn’t agree with the president’s recent characterizations.

“The president called this a hoax publicly,” Hoyer said. “Nothing in the briefing that we have just received led me to believe it is a hoax.”

Yebbut you’re not Trump, so your judgement is distorted.

Then there’s a surprise.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats were briefed separately.

What? Wtf? Why? Shouldn’t briefings of all things be non-partisan aka the same no matter who is being briefed?

Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., told Mary Louise Kelly on NPR’s All Things Considered that she would have preferred to receive the briefing alongside her Republican colleagues.

“In my experience, we should be receiving the same information whether you’re Democrat or Republican,” Slotkin said. “When it comes to the national security of the country, you know, we should all be putting politics aside and just getting the facts as we understand them.”

No shit. Why on earth would that not be standard procedure?