People just can’t hide it anymore. Either that, or they’re trying to hide it but the reality of the situation has become so inherently ridiculous that simply describing what’s actually going on is now funny. There’s no need for spin. No sarcasm is necessary. The well-done New York strip is just perfect without a side of cynical ketchup.

Read this short Friday recap from Bloomberg:

Trump may vacillate on issues, but his tax-reform team led by Gary Cohn and Steven Mnuchin is staying the course on their timeline — one reassurance for investors with a bullish bent on U.S. stocks and the economy. Cohn said in an FT interview a bill will be written in the next few weeks and hopefully passed this year, backed by a subsequent series of Trump speeches to tout taming the tax code. That closely mirrors the “aggressive” timeline outlined by the White House on July 31. The heavy lifting of writing the bill rests on Congress and would relegate Trump to the role of outsider, which is helpful considering the details could get complicated quickly.

Read that bolded bit again. Basically: “writing legislation is something that requires attention to detail and critical thinking, so thank God Trump won’t be involved.”

Similarly, check out this deadpan bit from Deutsche Bank out this evening:

Debt ceiling anxiety came back in full force this week after President Trump threatened to shut down the government in order to advance his wall-funding agenda.

Again, it sounds so absurd when you read it that your first instinct is to think they’re being tongue-in-cheek and then you realize that actually all they’ve done is state the facts.

The situation is so surreal that reality is now its own joke. Donald Trump is the President of the United States and he’s holding the federal government hostage, Blazing Saddles-style, and demanding a $25 billion ransom.