There was some show and tell when he displayed a table full of paper almost as long as the row of flags behind him, the longest row of flags ever assembled in the history of press conferences, and almost as deep as his ongoing entanglements in his business dealings. The papers proved beyond a doubt that any outside ethics opinion is just a salacious rumor. Fake news. But you are not allowed to actually read those papers, because they are currently being audited.

And speaking of audits, he now has his own ethics expert who can explain that he doesn’t have to show his tax returns to anybody ever because he won the election and that proves that the only people who care about them are in the media, and if they keep asking troubling questions he will never call on them again. The ethics expert also explained that a “blind trust” is not something that Trump sets up, but what people are now expected to have in Trump.

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The soon-to-be-president also warned the press in not-so-veiled terms that any trafficking in unproven rumors is unequivocally something that Trump alone is allowed to do.

Any stories about Russia and fellow dictators there have been explained. While Trump’s nominee for secretary of state was auditioning before Congress, Trump himself has been busy auditioning to be Russia’s foreign minister by adopting every position that Vladimir Putin would like him to. This is not a conflict, because Putin, like Trump, is “strong,” and in any case, Trump will be turning over day-to-day operations of the United States to his son-in-law. Furthermore, Trump assured us it will all be fine because he would be tougher on Putin than Hillary Clinton, which is proved by the fact that Putin worked so hard to defeat Clinton. Oh, that wily Putin!