Likewise, I believed Trump when he visited Britain last year and said “I didn’t criticize the prime minister” – even though the Sun also had a recorded interview of him that time, criticizing Prime Minister Theresa May.

And I am fully prepared to believe Trump tomorrow if he says “I never called Sadiq Khan a ‘stone cold loser’ ” — even though Trump, landing in Britain on Monday, called the London mayor just that in a tweet that misspelled Khan’s name and also mocked him for being short.

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I believe all this and more because the alternative is unthinkable: that our great nation inflicted on the world a president who is, well, a stone cold loser, boorish and ignorant.

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Therefore I plan to do as Trump does: live today as if yesterday never happened. But it’s not enough to imagine away this week’s name-calling. To preserve national dignity, Americans must accept that none of the following ever happened:

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He didn’t refer to Brussels as a “hellhole” nor assert that “Belgium is a beautiful city.” And spelling the British prime minister’s name as that of a British porn actress? Never happened.

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His administration didn’t confuse Singapore with Indonesia and China with Taiwan, nor misidentify the Australian prime minister, nor misspell “Denmark.” Not once did Trump vow to “promote the possibility of lasting peach” in the Middle East.

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Trump, furthermore, did not sign the guest book at Israel’s Holocaust memorial with the words “so amazing.” He didn’t pull his name from a Group of Seven communique. He didn’t take a limousine and a golf cart instead of walking with other world leaders at summits. He didn’t struggle with a group handholding exercise in Manila, his knuckles didn’t whiten in the grip of Emmanuel Macron, and Melania Trump did not swat his hand away on the tarmac in Tel Aviv.

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Furthermore, Trump did not reveal secret Israeli intelligence to Russia. He didn’t accuse Germany of being “totally controlled by Russia.” He didn’t taunt the French over street protests, attack the idea of NATO, use an all-caps tweet to threaten Iran with annihilation, hail “fantastic” strongmen nor pine for the reign of Moammar Gaddafi.

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Fortunately, it has all been a misunderstanding. For if an American president had actually done even a fraction of the above, it would be an indelible national disgrace.

Twitter: @Milbank