There’s a widespread idea that the press takes President Trump literally, but not seriously, while his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.

Whatever stock you put in that claim, it’s clear that Trump’s critics take him literally whenever it’s helpful to do so. Case in point: the press and the Clinton campaign hearing Trump joke at a rally that maybe the Russians could track down Hillary’s 33,000 missing emails, and then accusing Trump of asking “an adversarial foreign power to cyberspy” on his opponent.

President Trump spoke Thursday afternoon at a joint press conference with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and was asked about accusations that his campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

He answered with what is clearly a lie:

One-hundred-percent wrong? Instant fact-check: true. That’s about all Trump’s enemies say, even if you ask them for the time.

We’ll go out on a limb and guess that what Trump meant was that even his political enemies have admitted they haven’t found evidence that his campaign worked with the Russians, and that’s pretty much the case. Even Rep. Maxine Waters, who talks publicly about little but Trump’s impeachment, admitted last week she has no evidence to back up claims of collusion.

There was also speculation that Trump using the “e” word would only strengthen the parallels between him and Nixon.

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That’s also true; but we’d advise journalists not to make too big a deal out of it, unless they showed similar concern when Clinton named Republicans the enemies she was most proud to have made, or when Barack Obama talked to Univision about Latinos voting to “punish our enemies.”

Again, no need to imagine, unless asking supporters to get in their neighbors’ faces was just a suggestion to spend quality time together.

Of course, with his line, Trump managed to tee up plenty of expected responses from those eager to be known as his enemies. Take Keith Olbermann … please.

Every super villain like Trump has to have a super hero to fight, but Olbermann, wrapped in his American flag cape, isn’t fighting alone.

That’s a lot of sworn enemies who are screaming about something for which even Waters and Sen. Dianne Feinstein admit there is no evidence … yet.

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Tags: collusionDonald TrumpenemiesJuan Manuel SantosKeith OlbermannNixonRussia