When I first became editor-in-chief of this fine publication, I tried my best to not write about politics in this section. Frankly, that didn’t last very long, as our current president has seemingly made it his one true goal to dominate each and every news cycle during his time in office. Say what you want about the man, but he’s undoubtedly the world’s preeminent pot-stirrer.

There have been many moments during Trump’s reign in which the incredibly knowledgeable and unbiased “journalists” at Fox News have claimed that he is becoming more presidential. But, if anything, he has displayed an unprecedented ability to become less presidential as time has gone on, often from tweet to tweet.

The absurdity has reached the point where Trump has no problem directly contradicting himself and/or the people he appoints. He can directly refute scientific evidence with no explanation or reasoning and his base takes it as gospel. There is no greater source of fake news than the man who popularized the phrase.

So, perhaps his latest refutation shouldn’t come as a surprise.

On Friday, Nov. 23, the White House released a scientific report on climate change that directly contradicts its own policies. Required by Congress, the National Climate Assessment is a 1,656-page document that details the effects that climate change will have on the U.S. economy, public health, infrastructure and coastlines.

The study involved 300 scientists, including career government scientists from 13 different federal agencies and spanned four years. They concluded that global warming will inflict billions of dollars in damage upon the U.S. within the next few decades.

The president’s direct response when asked about the report was, “I don’t believe it.” Again, this shouldn’t come as a surprise considering how aggressively he supports the burning of coal and has torn down numerous policies that were previously in place to protect the environment.

The only real surprise in this situation is that the White House didn’t alter any of the findings. Personally, I think it says a lot about how easily Trump and his people believe they can continue to manipulate his base.

First off, they released the National Climate Assessment on Black Friday, hoping that people would be too busy shopping to notice.

Steven J. Milloy is a member of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition team and also runs the website junkscience.com, which is primarily dedicated to convincing people that human-made climate change doesn’t exist and is actually liberal propaganda. In response to the assessment, he called it a product of the “deep state” and said, “We don’t care. In our view, this is made up hysteria anyway.”

“Trying to stop the deep state from doing this in the first place, or trying to alter the document, and then creating a whole new narrative — it’s better to just have it come out and get it over with,” said Milloy. “But do it on a day when nobody cares, and hope it gets swept away by the next day’s news.”

So essentially, Trump and his posse are hoping that the people who still support him are ignorant and naïve enough to ignore the facts and buy into their bull shit yet again. Unfortunately, it’s a strategy that has worked pretty well so far, and I doubt this will be the time his base stops drinking the Kool-Aid.