(CNN) President Donald Trump is in the middle of his 9-day foreign trip. But the big news here in Washington on Tuesday was the release of his budget blueprint -- the administration's wish list heading into the next fiscal year. It landed with a thud -- as Republicans largely avoided even talking about it and Democrats threw it in the trash. Literally. For some perspective on what's in the budget, what's not and whether it all matters, I reached out to the man who knows more about the budget than anyone: Qorvis MSL's Stan Collender. (Doubt me? Stan's Twitter handle is @thebudgetguy. I rest my case.) Our conversation, conducted via email and lightly edited for flow, is below.

Cillizza: How seriously should we take Trump's budget? As in, is anything close to this likely to be the outline of how the government is funded?

Collender: This is not serious at all; it's just a Trump campaign document pretending to be a president's budget. Submitting a budget that is likely ... or even possibly ... going to be adopted and implemented by Congress apparently wasn't the administration's primary goal. Communicating to the ultra-hard right wing of the Republican Party -- the Trump base -- seems to be its only real purpose.

Every president's budget to some extent is part political statement. But the just-released Trump budget takes this to a new and previously unprecedented level with ideology completely overwhelming governing.

The best way to think of it is as a Trump campaign rally on paper.

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