Consider the strategic and historical magnitude of what “President” Donald Trump said last week: He said that he believed the intelligence conclusions of a nation hostile to this country — Russia — over the intelligence conclusions drawn by American agencies.

It is a striking declaration, a betrayal of American trust and interests that is almost treasonous in its own right.

On Saturday aboard Air Force One, en route to Hanoi, Vietnam, Trump said of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s assault on our elections:

“He just — every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I believe — I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. But he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ I think he’s very insulted by it, if you want to know the truth.”

Trump went on to call the fact that Russia interfered in our election an “artificial Democratic hit job” that would cause people to die in Syria because Putin’s hurt feelings about being called on his crimes would prevent him from making a deal to end the bloody conflict in that country. And he called former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former C.I.A. Director John O. Brennan and former F.B.I. Director James Comey “political hacks.”