CAN A PRESIDENCY DECLARE BANKRUPTCY, 'CAUSE HE NEEDS BAILING OUT:

Conflicting reports also arose late Wednesday about Trump's conversation with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto over the weekend. The Associated Press initially reported that it had been provided a transcript of part of the conversation in which Trump took the Mexican president to task for not addressing drug violence strongly enough in his country.

"You have a bunch of bad hombres down there," Trump allegedly said. "You aren't doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn't, so I just might send them down to take care of it."

The story immediately blew up on social media, because it gave the impression that Trump had, in effect, threatened to invade the United States' southern neighbor and third largest trading partner.

A few hours later, CNN offered a different version of the story, reporting that what the AP reviewed had apparently been part of a White House staff-written "readout" of the conversation. The real transcript, part of which the network said it was provided, showed that Trump had not threatened to send US troops into Mexico, but had offered Pena Nieto military assistance if he needed it.

According to CNN, the transcript has Trump saying, "You have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with. We are willing to help with that big-league, but they have to be knocked out and you have not done a good job knocking them out."

This is, to put it plainly, bizarre. "Readouts" of presidential conversations with world leaders are sanitized summaries of calls, in which a shouting match is reduced to a "frank exchange of ideas" and an outright threat becomes one of "various options" that were discussed. What they never do is try to escalate an already tense situation.

Why a readout that so grossly misrepresented the president's words would have been created in the first place is mysterious. That it would have been leaked to the press is closer to incomprehensible.

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