As predicted, Trump takes the worst possible line on the Russia story

This response by Trump makes  no political sense whatsoever:

Congressional Republicans who blew a two year fuse trying to prove that Obama and Hillary did not have American soldiers' interests at heart in Benghazi now have a President who is openly saying that the briefings they are getting directly from intelligence sources about the danger American troops are in is a hoax.

I reckon that the low regard most of them already hold (in private) for Trump as their useful idiot will plummet to new levels.

I said the other day that the worst outcome would be for Trump to say he spoke to Putin who denied it, and that's the end of the matter as far as he is concerned.   But this apparent attempt to even pre-empt that he would even need to talk to Putin about it is arguably worse.   It shows that if he doesn't like the way he found out about something because it makes him look bad, he will simply go into complete denial instead of doing anything responsible.  

What line are his Fox News puppet masters taking on this?   Because this is going to be next to impossible to spin.

Greg Sargent's piece in WAPO explains in more detail:

Trump is now defending himself not just by claiming he wasn’t briefed on that intelligence, or just by contesting the significance of that intelligence. Instead, he’s declaring that the entire story simply doesn’t exist — that is, he’s suggesting no intelligence ever actually indicated anything like this.

Yet this defense is itself deeply self-incriminating. It only underscores what critics are saying — that at minimum, Trump should be taking this intelligence seriously and trying to get to the bottom of what it actually does indicate, even if the worst interpretation proves wrong....

There is a great deal we don’t know about the Russian bounties, and we should be exceptionally cautious. But one thing we can state right now is that the president of the United States should be taking a lot more of an interest in this and should be saying publicly that he is doing so....

Even the most charitable interpretation here is incriminating. If you stipulate that Trump is merely demonstrating an instinct to protect himself politically — and is just lashing out at the “deep state” or whatever — then this instinct is itself preventing him from seeking a full accounting. Such a narcissistic reflex itself ensures that Trump won’t act for the good of the country.

 Update: