But even by those standards, the past 24 hours have been dizzying.

Two issues are front and center for the White House: first, the embattled confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh, who is being accused of past sexual assault and misconduct; and second, the fallout from an embarrassing moment at the United Nations in which world leaders laughed at Trump’s claims.

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As the first situation has degraded, Trump and his team have adopted a newly aggressive approach. The problem: That approach directly contradicts what Trump said last week and in 2016. And as White House officials have struggled to play down the U.N. laughter, they’ve made patently ridiculous claims about it.

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Below are four examples.

1. Kavanaugh should have been “pushed . . . through”

Trump’s latest comment on Kavanaugh is that Republicans should have just confirmed him before the sexual misconduct allegations materialized. “They could have pushed it through two and a half weeks ago, and you wouldn’t be talking about it right now, which is frankly what I would have preferred,” Trump said.

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This ignores both procedural hurdles — which would have made such a swift confirmation basically impossible so close to the confirmation hearings, which concluded Sept. 7 — and also Trump’s own professed assurances that it’s important to hear what Kavanaugh’s accusers say.

“We should go through a process, because there shouldn’t even be a little doubt,” Trump said on Sept. 18. On Sept. 17, he said: “They’ll go through a process and hear everybody out. I think it’s important.”

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Trump is now saying he wishes the allegations had been made after Kavanaugh had been confirmed — suggesting that he doesn’t think it’s particularly “important” to hear Kavanaugh’s accusers. His new comments suggest that “even a little doubt” would have been totally okay, as long as he got the win and it was a done deal.

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It’s just impossible to square Trump’s newfound desire to push Kavanaugh through with his previously professed interest in a fair process to deal with the allegations — especially given that the women haven’t even testified yet.

2. Sanders: Kavanaugh deserves a vote, because very nominee deserves a vote

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered this defense for pressing forward on Kavanaugh: “The president wants this process to come to a vote, because that’s what’s supposed to happen in every single one of these instances where someone is nominated. They go before, they have a hearing, and then the senators vote on it.”

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That sound you hear is Merrick Garland screaming.

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Garland, you’ll recall, was President Barack Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court in 2016. Republicans declined to even hold hearings, much less a vote. The stated reason? Because the next president should be the one to pick the nominee.

But Sanders said hearings and votes should happen “in every single one of these instances where someone is nominated.” That’s a group that includes Garland. Yet that didn’t happen for Garland.

And Trump supported that decision publicly. “I think the next president should make the pick,” he said in March 2016, “and I think they shouldn’t go forward.”

3. Trump meant to get laughs at the U.N.

After Trump’s claim that he accomplished more in his first two years than just about any previous president drew laughs and an awkward response at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump had a ready explanation: He meant to draw laughs.

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“Oh, it was great,” Trump assured. “Well, that was meant to get some laughter.”

Except that this is a claim Trump has made dozens of times before in interviews and at rallies, and it has never been a laugh line.

And except that Trump was clearly taken aback by the response — and even said so on the spot. “Didn’t expect that reaction,” he said, “but that’s okay.” So Trump was both planning on the laughter and surprised by it? Got it.

4. Haley: Leaders laugh because Trump was “honest”

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley took a crack at a different explanation for the laughter. It wasn’t because the line was meant to elicit laughs, she said, but because leaders were taken aback by Trump’s honesty.

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“The media’s got this so wrong,” she said on Fox News Channel. “When he said that, they love how honest he is, and it’s not diplomatic, and they find it funny.”

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She added: “When he goes and he is very truthful, they kind of were taken back by it. . . . They’re not used to it.”

Except the statement at issue is decidedly not true or honest. Although presidential accomplishment is something of a subjective measure, even fact-checkers have roundly rejected Trump’s claim that he accomplished more than almost all (or even all, as Trump sometimes claims) previous presidents. Congress has basically passed one major bill in 20 months: the tax cuts. There is almost no way to substantiate the claim.

It would be understandable if Haley said the world leaders laughed because they weren’t used to Trump’s brand of self-promotion. But to cast these statements as shockingly honest is a bridge way too far.