This week has been a bad week for the Trump administration, even by its usual standards. Besides the usual racism and corruption allegations came the news of a whistleblower, someone who considered the president’s behavior so deeply disturbing that they had to come forward.

All of this was made slightly more amazing due to the fact that Rudy Giuliani actually admitted to meddling in May in the New York Times when he told Ken Vogal, “We’re not meddling in an election; we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do.” So perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised that the foreign government the whistleblower was whistleblowing about was Ukraine.

Like with any crisis in Trumpworld, the Trump Mobius strip of propaganda rolled out a rapid and slightly insane response. Trump’s propagandists met yet another allegation of presidential malfeasance with a smorgasbord of obfuscation, confession, deflection, confusion, and unbridled hostility.

The morning after the whistleblower’s allegations came to light, the president’s favorite breakfast show cheerfully explained to its viewers that what looked like potential treason was in fact merely “the art of the deal.” Yes, possible corruption was actually just deal-making! Geraldo Rivera chimed in to call out the whistleblower for being “annoying, this is a punk, a punk who's snitching out the president's phone calls to a foreign leader”. Newt Gingrich volunteered an “executive powers” defense. Gingrich has himself been plagued by ethics scandals, so perhaps he’s the perfect person to defend such an ethically challenged president.

But Fox is just one of the many arms in the president’s propaganda octopus. The Gateway Pundit asked: “What would a Deep State hit be without Hillary Clinton, the most crooked woman in Washington DC?” Wait, what? Yes, this publication managed to spin the whistleblower allegation into an indictment of Hillary Clinton. Another Trumpy news site called Amgreatness argued that the president can do whatever he wants because of the constitution. I'm not a constitutional scholar but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say: no, no he can’t.

But no one shills for the president quite like the members of his own party, and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is always happy to go on Fox News and blame “another deep state attack” on whatever’s got the president into trouble this time. Likewise, Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn blamed the Democrats for the whistleblower, saying, "You will never see the attacks stopped. The left will not give up because they cannot even accept the fact that they lost." All of this is made sillier by the fact that none of these people know who the whistleblower is.

Everyone Trump has fired or forced out Show all 13 1 /13 Everyone Trump has fired or forced out Everyone Trump has fired or forced out John Bolton Trump claimed to have fired Bolton, his national security adviser, while Bolton claimed he offered to resign. An anonymous White House source that Bolton's departure came as a result of the national security adviser working too independently of the president AFP/Getty Everyone Trump has fired or forced out Anthony Scaramucci Scaramucci lasted only six days in his role as Trump's communications director before being fired by John Kelly, the incoming chief of staff Getty Everyone Trump has fired or forced out Rick Perry Rick Perry announced his resignation just as he became embroiled in the president's impeachment scandal. The White House said Mr Perry was asked by Donald Trump to work with Rudy GIuliani in regards to Ukraine. AP Everyone Trump has fired or forced out Rex Tillerson Tillerson, Trump's first secretary of state, was fired after a series of clashes with the president over policy Getty Everyone Trump has fired or forced out James Mattis Mattis served as secretary of defense from the beginning of Trump's administration until retiring on 1 January 2019. However, the president later claimed that he had "essentially fired" Mattis Getty Everyone Trump has fired or forced out James Comey Comey was fired as director of the FBI early in Trump's presidency after serving in the role for four years prior. His dismissal is widely thought to have been related to the Russia investigation Getty Everyone Trump has fired or forced out Reince Priebus Priebus, Trump's first chief of staff, was forced out after six tumultuous months AFP/Getty Everyone Trump has fired or forced out David Shulkin Veterans affairs secretary Shulkin claims that he was fired, the White House claims that he resigned Getty Everyone Trump has fired or forced out John Kelly Kelly, Trump's second chief of staff, was forced out after 17 months in office. His departure was a confused affair though it is clear that Trump wanted Kelly out AFP/Getty Everyone Trump has fired or forced out Michael Flynn Flynn lasted 24 days as Trump's national security adviser before being fired for lying to the FBI Getty Everyone Trump has fired or forced out Lee Cisna Cisna served as director of citizen and immigration services between October 2017 and June 2019 before being asked to resign amid a major personnel change in the department of homeland security Everyone Trump has fired or forced out Madeline Westerhout Westerhout served as Trump's personal assistant after leaking private information about his family AFP/Getty Everyone Trump has fired or forced out Mira Ricardel Ricardel was forced out of her role as Deputy National Security Advisor after first lady Melania Trump publicly called for her to be fired

But perhaps the strangest moment of Trump-defending came from John McCain’s daughter. John McCain, of course, is well-known as the one member of the Republican Party who stood up to Trump before he died of brain cancer. His daughter, Meghan, has been somewhat critical of the president — but not today. Today she somehow conflated Assange and the whistleblower by making an odd defensive argument in favor of Trump. Specifically, she said: “There are liberals who were fine with Assange’s leaks but are screaming bloody murder right now about this whistleblower.” It’s not clear what the connection is between this whistleblower and WikiLeaks (unless Meghan McCain knows something the rest of us don’t) but it sure functioned as another valiant attempt to shift blame away from the president of the United States.

Trump’s post-crisis news cycles are in some ways the most enlightening: they show us just how in bed the Republican Party is with him. The president’s defenders will die on all the hills for their leader, and the strategies are becoming wearingly obvious. First, they will start by denying or ignoring something, or by saying that the president was just joking and you’re not supposed to take him literally or figuratively or in whatever way you did. Then, sooner or later, they almost always get around to the defense that if a crime is committed by the president of the United States, it’s not really a crime at all (this rationale was also used by Nixon.)

The idea that the president gets a pass to commit crimes because he’s the president or because they aren’t really crimes when he does them is some really impressive thought jujitsu. But the even more impressive fact is that we barely know anything about the whistleblower and already Team Trump is committed to discrediting them.