We now know why Donald Trump knows so much about shithole countries. That’s because he’s created one in his White House. His administration is now so mired in muck it may sink of its own heft (239 pounds worth) and corruption.

Where to start? We have the astonishing sight of all of the nation’s security agencies warning of Russian interference in our upcoming 2018 elections, evidence of a continuing pattern by that nation. Yet the President continues to deny Russian meddling in the 2016 election — also confirmed by those same security agencies — and can find nothing to say in support of the 2018 findings. In other words, he shows little concern for a foreign state perverting the American election process.

So what is the President focused on? It can’t be spousal abuse, for this administration — in an almost comical series of “official” comments — can’t get its story straight about why it continued to keep presidential aide Rob Porter on the job when the FBI warned the administration he had committed spousal abuse. And the administration kept him on the job for months, apparently in spite of what Trump’s closest aide John Kelly has insisted. And why did Porter continue to have access to the highest government documents though he lacked permanent security clearance?

Of course Porter isn’t the only aide who has quit his job after it became know he had no permanent security access. That’s part and parcel of the kind of people who work at the White House these days.

And then there are the Trump cabinet secretaries whose acquaintance with corruptive practices is close and frequent. Former HHE Secretary Tom Price was fired — finally — for his flagrant misuse of government travel funds. Now we have another secretary who falsified emails so he would take his family on expensive overseas trips. And another who regularly flies first class (in violation of government stipulations otherwise) and chooses the most expensive hotels for his ill-timed visits around the country. What a shabby bunch of faux public servants, whose chief occupation seems to be in trying to steal from taxpayers. Donald Trump sure knows how to hire good people, doesn’t he?

But the President has his own growing concerns, too. It seems his personal lawyer, out of the goodness of his lawyerly heart, paid a porn star $130,000 not to talk about her relationship with Trump. Trump, of course, had nothing to do with this payoff and never had sex with this woman. And the Pope doesn’t wear funny hats.

And we have Trump saying he is not in favor of spousal abuse (Is it really necessary that the President of the USA confirm that? Well, yes it is.), though he admits he loves to grab women sexually (isn’t that sexual abuse?) and was messing around with that porn star while married to Melania (isn’t that some kind of spousal abuse?). The word “shame” seems unaccountably missing from all of these discussions. But perhaps that’s what happens when you are dealing with a shithole administration.