When I first read the news this morning of Rudy Giuliani’s claim that Trump had personally repaid his hired goon Michael Cohen the $130k that Cohen had paid to Stormy Daniels, I started thinking through why they had made this admission. Had Giuliani and Trump decided that contradicting Trump’s previous lie that he knew nothing about the payments was better than facing questions about campaign finance violations? Was there something else here that I was missing?

Approximately five seconds later, I remembered Trump’s Razor:

Ascertain the stupidest possible scenario that can be reconciled with the available facts and that answer is likely correct.

Rudy Giuliani is a self-important clown who has not practiced law in any meaningful sense in decades. His idea of strategy is shouting at crowds or fellow Fox News panelists until he is red in the face, which usually takes less than a minute.

There is no strategy here. There is never a strategy with Trump or any of the incompetent, self-serving bootlickers with whom he surrounds himself.

Trump, Giuliani, Cohen—none of these idiots has any idea how campaign finance law works, and they are all used to blustering their way through problems. Maybe they had kicked around some half-baked idea along the lines of Trump having reimbursed Cohen. Maybe. Then Giuliani gets on TV and starts randomly spouting off about it, and none of them has bothered to think through the implications of what they are saying.

I mean, even Hannity could see the problems with the claim Giuliani was making. He tried to give Giuliani a chance to walk it back, but Rudy couldn’t be bothered.

They are all venal, small-time crooks, and that should inform the analysis of anything this bunch does.