Trump says the rallies are helping Republicans, the same rallies his own candidate's tapes called a backfire.

…(cont) It held again on October 1st, when the president flew to Texas to campaign for Paxton regardless of the audio, the trip itself standing in for an answer.

It did not survive the third tape. This week Paxton told another closed-door fundraiser that the issue dragging his campaign was not tariffs — "it's the war, it's gas prices, it's diesel" — the president's war, named by his own candidate as the reason voters are souring. Diesel does not care who is on the ballot; some shit does not poll, and this is that kind.

On Wednesday the president made his third trip to Texas in a month, to San Antonio, to rally for the man whose own recordings say the rallying is the problem. Asked outside the White House what the trips were accomplishing, he told reporters he thinks he's helping the Republican Party with the rallies. He said it the same day his candidate's tape said the opposite of him, for the third time, in his own voice, on the record.

The theory leaves behind no formal rebuttal, because none was needed; it refuted itself, three times, into the same recorder.

Preceded in death this week by "I Haven't Heard That," the position that ignorance of one's own candidate's complaints could be maintained indefinitely. It could not. Neither could this.

There is no malarkey left to spread on the grave; the grave filled itself in, on tape, in the candidate's own voice, three separate times, while the rallies kept being booked.

In lieu of flowers, check the price of diesel before you check what anyone tells you a rally did.