From the beginning, the President of the United States has chalked up Saudi Arabia's reported atrocity murder of a U.S.-resident journalist as essentially the cost of doing business. But knowing Donald Trump, it was always insufficient to merely weigh the killing—and the message we're now sending, that putative allies can assassinate journalists critical of their regime with impunity—against the supposed $110 billion that the House of Saud is spending on American weapons.

Never mind that they've actually only forked over $14.5 billion so far, and that they're using those weapons to, in part, continue the ongoing human rights calamity in Yemen. That's the conflict where Saudi blew up a school bus full of children out on a field trip with an American-made bomb, and where 5 million more children are at risk of starving to death. The United States government has been entirely complicit, beginning during the Obama administration, in turning the Yemeni civil war into a regional proxy war between the Saudis and Iran. The consequences have been catastrophic. In August, 500 people were killed in one nine-day period.

The Yemeni capital of Samaa, November 14, 2016 MOHAMMED HUWAIS Getty Images

Anyway, it was never enough to tout the big number, especially when there are major questions over whether the "business" part of "the cost of doing business" refers not to the United States' interests, but to Trump's private enterprise. Yes, the possibility of this mind-numbing conflict-of-interest must be thoroughly papered over with lies and ridiculous claims, which led, according to The Washington Post, to Trump doing his best Gob Bluth impression:

“It’s $110 billion. I believe it’s the largest order ever made. It’s 450,000 jobs. It’s the best equipment in the world.”

— President Trump, in remarks to reporters, Oct. 13, 2018

“$110 billion in purchasing. It’s 500,000 jobs, American jobs. Everything’s made here.”

— Trump, in an interview with Trish Regan of Fox Business News, Oct. 16

“Who are we hurting? It’s 500,000 jobs. It’ll be ultimately $110 billion. It’s the biggest order in the history of our country from an outside military.”

— Trump, in an interview with Stuart Varney of Fox Business News, Oct. 17

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“I would prefer that we don’t use, as retribution, canceling $110 billion worth of work, which means 600,000 jobs.

— Trump, during a defense roundtable at Luke Air Force Base, Oct. 19

“So now if you’re talking about — that was $110 billion — you know, you’re talking about over a million jobs. You know, I’d rather keep the million jobs, and I’d rather find another solution.”

— Trump, in additional remarks to reporters after the roundtable, Oct. 19

As is so often the case, the task here is not to determine whether Trump is saying something false, but whether he knows it's false to a degree sufficient to call this a lie. Surely, Trump knew at some point that the claim the Saudi business has created a million American jobs wasn't true. (The Post helpfully reminds us the entire American defense and national security industry supports 355,500 jobs, and that the White House used to say the Saudi deal could support 40,000. Even that claim had thin evidence.) But his capacity for self-delusion is such that, in the course of these escalating Gobian claims, the president may well have convinced himself that he's telling the truth. Or, you know, he just lies all the time.

NICHOLAS KAMM Getty Images

None of this grapples with the moral question of how much Jamal Khashoggi's life was worth beyond oil-soaked dollar bills. None of it deals with the (very much intended) chilling effect this will have on Saudi dissidents, who were meant to take from this that dissent might lead to your brutal murder and dismemberment. None of it takes into account that other authoritarian regimes the world over will see how the Trump administration has reacted here and take it as an invitation to crack down on their own dissidents, or that, in turn, those critics may already be altering their behavior in anticipation of it all.

No, all that would be much too fraught. The midterms are coming, so it's time to rattle off escalating jobs figures like an auctioneer and, of course, monger the fear. The president was not at all subtle about that this morning:

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Sadly, it looks like Mexico’s Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy. Must change laws! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2018

"Unknown Middle Easterners" is like if you hit a Trumpian soundboard. It's a mad lib with "racially charged fearmonger" as the prompt. Needless to say, there is exactly zero evidence there are migrants from the Middle East in this "caravan," a group of Central American migrants heading towards the U.S.-Mexico border that has sparked another outbreak of mass hysteria on the right. It appears Trump got his "Middle Easterners" bit from, you guessed it, Fox and Friends. In a sad indictment of where we are now, this began as fringe-right-wing propaganda, but steadily made its way into the president's brain. He then shared it with the wider world—without a second thought about whether it might actually be true—because it was politically useful to him:

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Follow the bouncing ball: 1) Guatemala's president said at a conference that they had arrested, over some period, 100 people linked to terror. Completely unrelated to the caravan. 2) Right-wing sites used that to raise caravan fears. 3) Fox joined in. 4) The president joined in. pic.twitter.com/6dxKq2HEK8 — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 22, 2018

Toronto Star Reporter Daniel Dale tracked Trump's most excellent adventure in lies and distortions this weekend, as he rounded into the midterm homestretch with an iconic double-feature:

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In one speech yesterday, the president invented nonexistent riots in California and a nonexistent Democratic policy of giving luxury cars to unauthorized immigrants. Afterward, he touted a nonexistent plan to pass a major tax cut in the next 10 days. — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 21, 2018

Apparently, the free cars bit was another example of President Gob, as Trump introduced the idea Democrats might in the future give away Rolls Royces as (an admittedly absurd) hypothetical one minute, then spoke about it as established fact the next. In this, we see a nice Trumpian homage to the longtime Republican tradition of casting Democrats as wanting to give free stuff to people of a Certain Complexion, one that dates back to Ronald Reagan's caricature of "welfare queens" and "strapping young bucks" with their T-bone steaks. More recently, there were The Obama Phones.

And, having revved up the racial resentment and mongered the fear in an attempt to get The Right People out to vote, Trump set out to discourage The Wrong People from voting, too:

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All levels of government and Law Enforcement are watching carefully for VOTER FRAUD, including during EARLY VOTING. Cheat at your own peril. Violators will be subject to maximum penalties, both civil and criminal! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 21, 2018

The strategy, now, is clear. Trump and his Republican allies will not be running on the tax cut they passed, which they said would power the American economy to new heights. Perhaps that's because it blew a gigantic hole in the deficit and the vast majority of its benefits will flow to the wealthiest Americans. They've identified a major political problem on healthcare, and opted to shamelessly lie about it. They're not even often touting the deregulation frenzy they've unleashed, creating "business-friendly environments" that also happen to endanger the health of ordinary citizens.

No, running on actual Republican policy apparently will not do. The president is leading the way as Republicans go all in on resentment and fear, ginning up dark fantasies featuring faceless hordes of a Certain Complexion marching towards our southern border, combined with jukebox throwbacks about Democrats giving free stuff to Certain People. They're all-in, again, and it's ugly.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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