WATCH: CNN’s Jake Tapper flabbergasted by Trump’s blatant flip-flops on Russia

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Trump assured the veterans in attendance not to believe what they see and hear in the media.

"Just stick with us. Don't believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news," the President declared, gesturing derisively at the reporters in the room. "Just remember what you're watching and what you're reading is not happening."

On CNN's the Lead with Jake Tapper, Tapper tried to wrap his head around the President's apparently daily flight from reality.

But that was just the start.

Exhibit B of the President's strange relationship to reality was his claim that if Russia interferes in 2016, it'll be to help Democrats. It's not clear if he was joking. Regardless, it fits a pattern of flip-flopping by the President on Russia.

Just last week, at a joint press conference, President Vladimir Putin admitted that he'd wanted Donald Trump to win. "So why would he want to help Democrats," Tapper wondered.

And despite the near-universal consensus that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, the President continues to cast doubt, seemingly siding with Putin over America's intelligence agencies and the American people.

"After all even the President's own intelligence chief maintains that the Russian government launched cyber attacks against the United States to intervene in the 2016 election," Tapper noted.

"We saw him sitting beside the perpetrator [Putin] over his victims, the American people."

"Has there ever been a president wtih so little apparent regard for the credibility of his own national security announcements?" Tapper wondered.

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