It was about a month ago when Donald Trump announced an apparent breakthrough on Russia’s war in Ukraine. “Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets,” the American president wrote. “Russia has agreed to do, likewise!”

Reality quickly intervened. Indeed, one day later, The New York Times reported that the Russian and Ukrainian governments made clear “that neither had agreed to an energy cease-fire that President Trump presented as a done deal a day before.”

The fact that the American president announced an imaginary agreement about an ongoing war probably should have been deeply humiliating to the Republican, but he nevertheless did the same thing this week.

On Sunday morning, Trump again turned to his social media platform to announce, “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed.”

Both parties had not agreed, and Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure continued.

On Monday afternoon, during a brief Q&A, a reporter asked Trump an important and rather obvious question: Why did he say that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an energy ceasefire when that did not actually happen?

“Well, they agreed, you know why?” Trump replied. “Because I said, ‘You agree.’ That’s why. They agreed because I said they agreed.”

In other words, when the president told the world in writing that two warring nations had “agreed” to a new policy, he didn’t mean that the countries had actually agreed to the new policy. He instead meant that he told them to agree, which in his mind was the same thing, since he is apparently convinced that he can dictate decisions on behalf of the Ukrainian and Russian governments.

What we’re dealing with is a dynamic in which the incumbent American president is comfortable issuing public declarations about governing breakthroughs that have only happened in his mind, which is every bit as unsettling as it sounds.

Why would anyone believe Trump’s next boast after he effectively admitted that he’s willing to announce imaginary developments? I honestly don’t know.

As for the idea that Trump might have been trying to affect energy prices with his latest false claim, that apparently didn’t work, either. NBC News reported, “Oil and gas prices rose Monday after an ‘energy ceasefire’ announced by President Donald Trump on Sunday failed to gain traction. Brent crude oil jumped 2% to almost $108 per barrel and U.S. crude oil rose more than 2% to about $94.”

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