The morning after news broke that the Pentagon plans to take military pension and pay funds to pay for Donald Trump’s border wall, Trump once again proved that nobody, but nobody, thinks Trump’s supporters are stupider than Trump himself does.

Trump once again trotted out his lie that “The Wall is being built and is well under construction” and “Far ahead of schedule despite all of the Democrat Obstruction and Fake News!” Sure, if by “the wall is being built” you mean “repairs and replacements for existing fence are being done, as they usually are,” and by “far ahead of schedule” you mean “because these repairs and replacements of existing fence were planned a while ago, they are happening more quickly than a wall could be built from scratch.”

But Trump’s wall is not already under construction. It’s still in the phase of the Defense Department trying to strip money out of existing programs to move to wall construction, while the Senate prepares to vote on a resolution against Trump’s national emergency declaration and lawsuits challenge the legality of what Trump’s doing. In the looking-for-money department, the Pentagon is turning to unused military pay and pensions as, believe it or not, a source of funding that it sees as less politically risky than derailing military construction projects.

The money supposedly is available because Army recruitment was down by about 6,500 soldiers, leaving payroll lower than expected, and because troops aren’t taking the military up on a voluntary early retirement program, leaving money allotted for that. But as Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said, “Imagine the Democrats making that proposal—that for whatever our project is, we’re going to cut military pay and pensions.” Imagine … but don’t expect the double standard to change.